Day 7 - Relaxing in Glacier country

Day 7. Leisurely breakfast in the sit-out after waking up at 8 am. Got dressed and left to drive 21 km back to Fox Glacier, from where our helicopter flight was due to start. Fox and Franz Josef glaciers are among the most accessible glaciers in the world. Both are around 12-13 km long and are unique in that they descend from the Southern Alps onto a very low altitude (about 975 ft above sea level), into a lush temperate rainforest. The area surrounding the 2 glaciers is part of the Westland National Park and is again a World Heritage Site.

We reached Fox glacier with tons of time to spare. It was a warm day and we were all wearing only trousers and full-sleeved cotton tops/shirts (no wool) but I had come equipped with lots of options. Each of us could choose from a light jacket, a heavier jacket and a big warm fluffy jacket :) We found out that the glacier was only about 5 degrees colder than our current temperature at Fox Glacier. Since my husband is fundamentally incapable of letting me sit down and relax in the sunshine, he made me walk up and down to the car a few times so that we could all try out various permutations and combinations of warm clothes. Finally we settled on our warmest jackets and when we reached the field where our helicopter was supposed to take off from, our escort asked us if we weren't too warm because the glacier was almost exactly the same temperature. So S and I thankfully ditched our jackets. The kids refused so we let them be. 

This was the tiny helicopter that we flew in.

Ads was super excited, especially as he sat next to the pilot. The latter kept up a running commentary but honestly, the bird was so noisy I couldn't hear much even with the headphones. Y was terrified, cried a bit and buried her head in my lap as soon as we were seated. 

The glacier. Never seen one before and was quite thrilled to see it did actually look like a river of ice.

Us playing in the snow. It was pretty difficult to put one step forward in front of another. The kids loved pelting each other and us with snowballs and our pilot obligingly clicked lots of pictures. 

The view of the glacier descending into a rainforest and in the distance you can see the coast.

Before we knew it, we were back on solid ground with Ads clamouring "Amma, can we go again? Please?". We ate a big lunch and headed back to our rooms for a nice long afternoon nap. The kids woke up and played on the trampoline while S and I sipped chai and sat in the sunshine. We walked around, looked at the pet alpacas and goats, ran away from a friendly dog that was following us :) That is, I walked serenely  while throwing looks of deep disgust at the rest of my dog-phobic family who were running helter-skelter!

The weird part of the day was S coming back after buying takeout dinner for us and telling me that he met a friend/batchmate of ours from b-school, at the gas station! Ah well, NZ is a popular holiday destination for Indians and it is indeed a very small world. The other interesting thing that happened on this day was that try as we might, we could not connect my phone to the free wi-fi network. At the same time, I found a feedback form (from Tourism New Zealand) in the apartment which asked me to rate this property and we were asked to hand it over at the reception. Now I wrote a glowing review of the place and when S went to the reception to complain about the wifi, he took the form and handed it over. The guy was so touched with my review that he gave S his laptop to use and surf the net :))

When we came back to India, one of the first things I did was go to tripadvisor and give my review/rating of all the properties we visited. I use the Internet so much for planning my travel (and for everything else) that increasingly I feel I need to 'give back' a little of what I take from it :)

Ad-lib #7

Ads has only recently realized that I write a blog. Since he doesn't know what a blog is, I told him that "Amma writes stories about you both, real stories about what you do and say, so that you can read it when older." He's also seen the blog and knows it's called Adventures in Mommyland. Last night, he wanted a bed-time story. Now it's been a loooong time since I've done bed-time stories (that task has been outsourced completely to adoring grandparents, aunts and uncles). I was racking my brains about what to tell him when he piped up "Don't think so much, amma. Just tell us a story from Mommyland!".

Day 6 - a long day of driving

Day 6 was the only day we had a goodish amount of driving to do. I'd deliberately planned it that way, one day of 7-7.5 hours driving time against 2 days of 6 hrs driving each, as easier on all of us. Imagine my dismay when I re-checked the driving times on all the maps we had picked up in NZ and found that they estimated the driving time between Te Anau and the Glacier country, as 10.5 hours!!! On top of that, we discovered that I had left the car rental documents in the Queenstown airport and that we had been driving in an alien country with no rental and insurance documents. I looked suitably apologetic while being thoroughly scolded for my carelessness, however I had already forgiven myself. I had planned and booked every bit of the holiday, not to mention the entire packing up, shutting up of the apartment, notice to everyone from the car cleaner, apartment office, maid, cook, newspaper, milkman and security guards...with a thousand things to remember, yes I had been a little careless...so what? We checked out and left as early as we could on Boxing day and drove back all the way to Queenstown airport, where we managed to get duplicate documents very quickly. 

We now had to head slightly north-east, then cut across and head steadily westwards until we hit the coast and headed north to Glacier Country. We cut through the Remarkables (that's what the mountain ranges in Central Otago and the Queenstown-Lakes district are called) and down to Wanaka, a very pretty town on the shores of Lake Wanaka. Wanaka is sort of like a little sister to Queenstown, but much more peaceful and a holiday destination in itself. 

We found a very handy picnic table with a canopy (it was hot and sunny!) just very close to where S and the kids are standing in the pic, and while S went off to fill petrol, I unpacked our picnic lunch (sandwiches again) and got the kids to eat up. We'd had some anxious moments in the car as both of them seemed to be queasy on the winding road so we also made a brief stop at the town center to buy some nausea medication. I've done enough washing and wiping down of cars and carseats to be very very wary of anybody puking in the car :( We lined the floor and the entire backseat of the car with newspapers and plastic covers before we started off again and I kept the children chewing lollipops for more than an hour. I also tried to get them to sleep - a surefire remedy - but they just weren't interested. Fortunately, though they did continue to feel queasy, they didn't actually throw up and I heaved a big sigh of relief :)

We crossed the very still, very beautiful Lake Hawea before hitting the coast. The coastline (Tasman Sea) was evocative of the holiday we had taken driving along the Big Sur in California. The same bright blue sea, the same white sand and the same blinding sunshine.

A quick taste of 100% New Zealand ice-cream at Haast, and we quickly reached Glacier Country. We had taken only 8 hours on the road so the maps had indeed been way off the mark. We crossed the township (or should I call it a village) of Fox Glacier and drove another 20 or so km to Franz Josef, where we were staying. The self-contained villas where I had booked us (over-riding the more convenient location suggested by our travel agent) turned out to be a truly inspired choice. It was a little bit out of town, so we had to drive if we wanted a bite to eat, but for that very reason, it was very quiet and had a superb view of snow-capped mountains. I gracefully accepted the compliments showered on my acumen by the husband, and gently suggested that it might be the best place we've ever stayed in while travelling, even better than the truly lovely ones S had unearthed in the past. I think S was in a great mood on seeing the villa because he conceded the point :)

Harmony restored, we had a lovely time taking pics of the place before the kids turned it into a shambles :)

This is the living area with a partial view of the sit-out. There was also a dining table and a kitchenette in the same room. The living room led to the bathroom and to the main bedroom.

You can kind of see the kitchen in this snap. The stairs on the right led to the 2nd bedroom which had 3 singe beds and a lovely sloping roof. The kids promptly appropriated it for their own :)

The view from the sit-out. Lovely, na?

Our unit from the outside (and that's me skulking in the curtains :))

The guy at the front-desk was super-friendly. The first thing he did when we checked in was to shove a bottle of milk in my hand, to 'fix a drink for your little ones'. Now that completely totally bowled me over!!!! Such a small gesture, it cost them literally nothing, but so thoughtful! The guys also gave us a lot of tips on where to eat, what to see etc. Based on his recommendation, we toddled off to an Indian restaurant and gorged ourselves on paneer and naan.

I had planned the Franz Josef stay in such a way that we had nothing much scheduled by way of sightseeing. Apart from a 1/2 hour helicoper flight to see the glacier (very touristy, I know), every other activity was strictly optional. By this time we were also getting a bit tired, what with laying our heads down in a different bed and a different city almost every night, and we needed a mid-vacation break. A break in the middle of a break. How's that??? :)

The way this hotel worked, we told the guy at the reception what we wanted for breakfast the next day, and he delivered all the ingredients by 8 pm the previous night. I was delighted to see our breakfast basket. It was so cute!

Sigh, it had been a long (but good) day. We oohed and aahed over the sunset at 9 pm with background noise from Ads - "Amma, why do you always like to see the sunrise and sunset?" "Amma, why do you take so many photos?"!!!!

Lest I forget - the kids are growing up!

I was trying to change some of the tags on old posts and came across this post, written almost 2 years ago. This is one of the reasons I blog, to jog memories that can put life back in perspective :) We've come a long way since then!

Day 5 - Milford

Next morning, we set out for the 2.5 hour drive to Milford Sound, where we were booked to go on a 1 hr 45 min cruise. This was on Xmas day and we knew all shops and most restaurants would be closed for Xmas and Boxing day (the 26th). Earlier on the 24th, we'd taken the precaution of stocking up on essentials - bread, butter, jam, snacks and fruit, and I packed a lunch-to-go for all of us on the 25th. The drive to Milford was, obviously, breathtaking. I think it's a measure of how used we were getting to Kiwi beauty after just 4-5 days that I had stopped taking out my camera at every turn. You see, we were confident that even if we missed this lovely shot, there would be another one coming along after just a couple of minutes :)

We had a map highlighting all the scenic stops on the way to Milford. Some of them would be time and effort-intensive. For example, a 1.5 hr round trip hike to see a lake where the views were supposed to be amazing. We skipped such stops; where it involved short easy hikes which the children could manage, we made it a point to halt. As always, there were innumerable potty halts, in addition to photo-op stops and general panic halts because someone had dropped a toy under the seat and had to retrieve it this instant or else! 
This pic clicked soon after we took off post-breakfast, through the windscreen.

Mirror-lakes, a group of tarns (small mountain lakes). The water was so still!

A bubbling brook :)

This bird took a fancy to our radio aerial :)

A short hike into the rainforest.

And so we arrive.

We arrived with time to spare for a leisurely picnic lunch of sandwiches, soaking in the stillness and beauty around us. Talking of sandwiches, I must mention how absolutely yummy NZ butter was! Rich, absolutely melt-in-the-mouth, like no butter I've ever tasted. The cows must be really healthy and happy because the milk (poured by me straight down my throat, cold and fresh) was thick, creamy and almost sinful :)
The cruise (called a 'scenic' cruise - big surprise!) took us through the fiord (Milford Sound is actually a fiord and I had no idea of the difference between the two until I went to NZ), upto the head of the fiord and into the open Tasman Sea. A friend told me that the Norwegian fiords are far more impressive than Milford. I don't know about that because I was plenty impressed with this one! Trivia: The fiord is one of the windiest places on the planet and we got to experience this firsthand. I left the kids and S down in the warmth of the catamaran's lower deck and went up to the viewing deck and the wind was absolutely whipping out there!!! But the views were so much better so we got the children up after enfolding them in additional woolly layers. They hadn't ever experienced such windy conditions and they were thrilled, squealing in delight as they were pulled this way and that by the wind! We had to keep a tight hold on our resident featherweight because  she might have quite easily been swept away!

Baby seals sunning themselves.

The drive back home, around 4 pm.

Before we left for NZ, I had thought that visiting and seeing Milford would be the #1 highlight for me. What I hadn't realized that every place in NZ is so stunning that Milford became just another one of those stunning places, panoramic vistas and all. So - Milford was great. It just had to jostle for space at spot#1 along with other places :)

Days 3 & 4 - Queenstown, Te Anau

Day 3. We flew into Queenstown. As we approached the city, this was the view from the airplane window.

Enough to excite us about what lay in store!

We checked into our hotel. The kids got some downtime, playing in the room. Then we headed out (it was hot and sunny) to the waterfront, the Steamer Wharf. S and I always plan very deliberately, during a pure sightseeing holiday, to give the kids an opportunity every day to do kid stuff. Otherwise they can and they do get, very cranky and bored. In Queenstown, we set them down near the lake (there's a tiny pebbled beach there) and they spent a good hour throwing stones and sticks in the water and competing to see who could throw farthest. The insane beauty of the surroundings was kinda lost on them :) S and I took turns to explore the city center, such as it was (the town's permanent population is only 19000, and in peak season the tourists outnumber the residents!)

A quick ice-cream later, we boarded a Gondola for a ride up the hill, to catch a Maori performance as well as some fantastic views of the city. We were also hoping to see some people bungy-jumping (since we didn't plan to do it ourselves, a fact that disgusted many of our friends....but more on that later :)) but unfortunately the bungy-jumping area was deserted that evening. Ads enjoyed the Maori Kiwi Haka thoroughly, especially all the chest-thumping and loud war cries. Even I got a chance to go on stage and practise some of their moves :)

Back down, we wolfed down some dinner and headed back to the hotel, to give the kids their bath and wind them down before they were ready to fall asleep. The next day, we were driving 3 hours to Te Anau, from where the Milford track commenced. We weren't going on any tramps or hikes (another day, another time perhaps!) but we wanted to stay 2 days in Te Anau and experience Fiordland and of course, take a cruise down the world-famous Milford Sound. A few friends advised us to do both Milford and Doubtful Sounds but I felt it would be overkill not to mention the extra effort involved in getting to Doubtful, it being not as accessible as it's better-known sibling. We would have done both if it was just the two of us. But with young kids around, we were always mindful of putting them through needless extra travel. I've been told - where's the strain for the kids - all they have to do is sit in the bus/car/train. But it's not like that is it? There is so much disruption to  their routines, so much extra stimulation on a trip that they never asked to come on anyway!

The drive to Te Anau was our introduction to driving in NZ. We had a very large SUV which was difficult to maneuver initially especially in the smallish parking slots everywhere. NZ roads are excellent but S tut-tutted at the inappropriate speed limits (either too high or too low) and the roundabouts, where you had to give way to the car or cars on your right, no matter how many there were (instead of following the rule that the vehicle inside the roundabout gets right of way, the way it's done in Delhi - much more sensible. The fact that no one in Delhi except us seems to follow this rule is another matter altogether :))

The scenic drive. We were lucky that most of the days we were blessed with clear skies, very blue and with lots of fluffy, very solid-looking clouds. 

Lake Te Anau, very placid. The town itself is a one-horse town, subsisting entirely on tourism. There was one main street and of course everyone knew everybody else :)

We spent some time lounging around near the lake and marvelling at the complete absence of people. Ads was thrilled to see his first ever seaplane. We had a 5 hour round trip the next day and we knew there were no petrol station on the way, so we tanked up before heading out for dinner. Pizza again! Little did we know that we would be subsisting on Italian food for the entire trip till we were sick and tired of it. The country has few vegetarian options so one has to fall back on sandwiches and Italian. Though I must say every Italian restaurant we went to served us simply scrumplicious food. I did laundry at the hotel while S bathed the kids and that was the end of Day 4.

Days 1 and 2 - Delhi & Auckland

Groan. A 2.40 am flight. Can you imagine anything worse, that too in December in Delhi? The day itself was quite relaxed since the packing was all done. We three even went down to the park as usual for our 2 hours of play (for the kids) and yak-yak (for me!). I got the kids back home earlier than usual and we finished the bath-dinner routine in record time. By 8 pm, they were in bed and asleep. I managed to get an hour of shuteye myself before it was time to leave. The kids were woken up, given a glass of warm milk each, dressed in their woolies, and off we went. They were wide-awake by the time we reached the airport and spent the next couple of hours happily playing in the children's area at T3 while the parents groggily looked on :) We boarded our Cathay flight to Hong Kong on time and an hour later, I was in the bathroom spilling my guts out courtesy a McDonalds smoothie that I had consumed at Delhi airport. By the time we deplaned at HK, I was shaken up but otherwise in good shape. We roamed the airport for a couple of hours and ate breakfast (pizza!) before settling in for the 2nd long leg to Auckland (10.5 hours).

The kids are generally very good on flights, even long ones. I suppose they aren't very hyper because even when they were toddlers we never had to run behind them in the aircraft aisle, or calm their crying or anything like that. Now that they are older, it's so much easier. Cathay, Singapore Airlines and Emirates rock when travelling with kids. The staff is friendly (ok I found the Cathay staff to be somewhat uppity with us Indians frankly), they hand out lots of goodies and the movie selection is pretty awesome. A&Y also sleep quite a bit when flying which makes it so much easier. Before we knew it, we were in Auckland, and greeting our friend who had come to pick us up.

We reached our friend's place and Y must have been pretty tired because she crashed in the car. We decided not to wake her up for a few hours. I think Ads would have slept if given the chance but we didn't want him to succumb to jet lag so we kept him awake until it was time to head to the zoo. A few hours of animal viewing later, we reached home, fixed an early dinner and allowed the kids to crash while we adults stayed up and chatted.  

Day 2 - we headed out by 10 am on a day trip to the Waitakere ranges and Muriwai. We finished with a picnic lunch at a Pohutukawa glade. The Pohutukawa is a native NZ tree, much beloved of the country's inhabitants. It comes into bloom with bright red flowers in December and is also known as the NZ Christmas tree.

Here are some pics. First view of Piha beach and Lion Rock.

Ads writing his name in the sand.

This is the pohutukawa tree.

Some tree-climbing in the glade.

Muruwai beach.

The gannet colony. It was very interesting - read more about it here. Each of the gannets was sitting on it's baby chick.

NZ blogathon - the run-up

Alternative title: "Lest I forget all the details about one of the greatest holidays ever" :)

I think the hardest and most time-consuming parts of a holiday are a) the planning and b) the packing bits. Being a true-blue Virgo, I enjoy both these aspects almost (only almost! I'm not all weird!) as much as the actual holiday. For a major overseas holiday I generally take 1-2 months just to do the research. I read a lot, most of it online. I read all the online guides, tripadvisor, T+L, about.com, and for good measure the travel itineraries posted online by Cox and Kings, Thomas Cook and SOTC. By the end of it all I have a pretty good idea of where to go and what to do/see. In this case, we knew we only had 10 days. We couldn't leave Delhi before the 19th of December because Ads was going to take part in his Annual Day function and that was on the 18th. The schools re-opened on the 2nd Jan and since everyone would need some downtime back home to get over jet-lag, we decided to get back on 30th December, which gave us a clear weekend to prepare ourselves for work and school.

Fortunately, 10 days seemed about right to get a neat introduction to New Zealand (not ideal, but optimal given real-world constraints!) I asked for quotes from the major tour operators, while at the same time working out how much it would cost us if we made all the bookings by ourselves. It turned out that there wasn't much of a difference if I accounted for the time and hassle saved by letting someone else do all the work. The total amount was still a shocker!!!! :( We went with SOTC who made our flight, train, hotel and rental car bookings. We decided to fly to Auckland first (it's on the North Island) and spend 2 days there with a friend. On the third afternoon, we would fly into Queenstown, rent a SUV and begin a week-long tour through the South Island. We would get rid of our rental car in Greymouth, take a train to Christchurch and thereafter fly back to Auckland, spending an extra day there before heading home to India. We more or less skipped doing the North Island in any detail. On South Island, we hit all the highlights and decided to skip the eastern and central parts which are well-known for stuff we've already done many times (for example, whale-watching in Kaikoura; Lake Tekapo which came highly recommended but which I felt would be similar to the tons of other lakes we would visit anyway; and Mt Cook National Park which might be a repetition of what we would see in the glacier region on the West Coast)

So, the planning and bookings got done well in time. The packing was mystifying. It was summer, but we were going to pass through variable temperature zones. Hot and sunny in Central Otago (Queenstown and Te anau), squally and rainy (2 days before we left our friend called to say that Auckland was wet and cold and I should get raincoats!), ice in the glacier region. So I had to pack for summer, winter and possible monsoon :) In the end I did the only sensible thing. Layers for everybody, no shorts or sleeveless clothes (which anyway didn't make sense since we are paranoid about sun exposure). Full-sleeved shirts/tops and pants. Raincoats. Thermals. 3 types of jackets for everyone - light, medium-heavy and heavy. 

I detest overpacking, so my strategy is always to pack the full consignment a week before we leave. 3 days later, I open the suitcases and mercilessly cut the wardrobe by half :) I get S to do a final check (so that he can't blame me if he's standing around without clean undies in the middle of the vacation!) and we are set. I'd ensured we could wash in 3 of the 5 hotels we were staying in, so we could easily make do with just 4-5 sets of clothes for the 10 days trip. I was thrilled when our friend's husband complimented me on having just 2 suitcases. In the event, it turned out that I HAD overpacked - we never used the thermals and heavy jackets, a fact that I cribbed about all the way home :) S calmly asked me if I wanted the entire family to walk around with thermals and puffy coats in 20 degree weather just so that I could feel good about my packing :)

This post has turned out longer than I anticipated, so more about the holiday in the next post. Until then, cheerio :)

My kowhai and my kauri

The friend with whom we stayed in Auckand gifted a book to Ads. It is called "The little Kowhai tree" and it's a very cute book about 2 trees (siblings, a brother-sister pair) who stand up for and protect each other. The children can't get enough of the book and I am reading it out to them several times a day. The same two lines repeat several times in the book and whenever they appear, the kids chorus (Y in high-pitched tones, very loud and clear and Ads with his altogether deeper, more bass voice) "I'm a little kowhai, short and stout. If you hurt my brother, you better watch out!". 

As the book comes to a close, Ads ends with "I'm a great big Kauri, tall and stout. If you hurt my sister, you better watch out!". 

Such Awwwww moments!

Giving thanks

This New Years day, I gave thanks for:

1. Adventurous kids who obligingly trooped off on the 1-hr metro ride to Chandni Chowk for street food lunch, inspite of some serious jet-lag.

2. Young, affectionate aunts who pamper and play with my kids and give them a break from me! :) Two of S's cousins were visiting and the children had such a blast with them.

3. The awesome street food of Delhi which allows me to consume the entire days' calorie quota in one sitting. Steaming Bhindi parathas, flaky khurchan, super-light daulat ki chaat and spicy aloo tikkis for lunch - does it get any better than this? 

2012 - please please - may you continue to be all about good kids, wonderful family and great food!

The Tooth fairy comes visiting

The place: Auckland, at a fancy restaurant on the waterfront. Y is fast asleep on S's lap. The three of us are tucking into some scrumptious ravioli and lasagne. Suddenly, Ads cries out (with a distinct look of alarm on his face) "Amma, my tooth broke!"

He couldn't find the tooth and since it meant he must have swallowed it (pesto flavour and all), he was very agitated that a "tooth tree" would start growing out of his mouth in a few weeks. The tooth....oops...the idea had been planted in his head by yours truly in a moment of ill-timed jest, briefly forgetful of the fact that Ads tends to take things a little too seriously and literally.

We calmed him down, rinsed out his mouth and he resumed his seat with a relieved and happy smile on his face. He has been yearning for the tooth to fall out for a few months. Being the youngest in his class, he was the last man left standing with all 20 milk teeth firmly in place and he wanted to take his place with the big boys and girls. I promised him the tooth fairy would come by once we landed in India and he retorted "Amma, there's no such thing as a tooth fairy. I know it's you who will give me the money."

Strange. The man knows there's no tooth fairy but is ready to believe that a fallen tooth will take root in his stomach :)

Aotearoa - The land of the long white cloud

I have been completely unplugged from the rest of the world for the last 2 weeks. We escaped the chilly Delhi winter, briefly, for a holiday in New Zealand. We do a lot of weekenders and short holidays throughout the year, but we like to reserve the big one for December. It's the time of the year that S doesn't have much to do and its easy to get days off. The negative is that it's the high season in many places, with Xmas/New Year surcharges thrown in sometimes. We generally plan ahead (I am talking of bookings being done by August) and that way we  don't have to dish out exorbitant amounts at the last minute. New Zealand had been on our list for a really long time, and this year we figured we should just go.

I spent many weeks planning the perfect itinerary, given multiple constraints of 2 small kids, S's osteoarthritis problem (he didn't want too much driving), budget (NZ is freaking expensive) and time. Thankfully, it worked out well and we had a truly amazing holiday. It wasn't the most relaxing holiday (there was too much sightseeing to be done) so we are pretty exhausted at this point and glad to be back home. But the kids were good as gold, I only had two episodes of puking/feeling sick/nausea (I'm not a good traveller), the weather stayed great throughout and nobody fell sick. Whew!

And my camera developed shutter fatigue. What more can I say about New Zealand. It must be the most beautiful country on our planet. I feel lucky to have had the opportunity to visit. 

I'd do pictures, but feeling pretty lazy at this point so I just changed the header :)

So 2011 came to a pretty fabulous close for us. Happy New Year folks!

Back to work

I have been snappy, irritable and more than a little antsy this last month or two. Some soul-searching revealed that I was - gasp! - Bored. Capital B and all. It appears, finally, that my honeymoon with stay-at-home-motherhood is reaching it's end. It's been four and a half years and now I cannot stomach not being a home anymore. In fact, I have been looking for work ever since my results came out in August. I've met a lot of people, spoken to and emailed many more, trawled any website that said "Flexible", "work-from-home", "part-time". Aware that the area I want to operate in is quite narrow, I wasn't getting my hopes up. As I expected, there are plenty of flexi jobs for those in the technology and accounting space (the usage of the word "plenty" is relative to when I last checked - 4 years ago!), lesser for those in other areas.  

I know from long experience (mine as well as that of my own home-grown expert in job-searches - my husband) that job-hunting for that elusive perfect job can be a long, time-consuming and frustrating process. When you want something that's flexible, interesting, challenging, and in the specific domain that you are interested in - one needs to be patient. And lucky. 

I stumbled on to a social enterprise founded by a lady who is also an alumnus of the same b-school. It works in the non-farm rural sector, building capacities/skills in micro-enterprises, providing marketing support, new product development support, and facilitating financial assistance. I met this lady and things worked out. My role is pretty neat. I get to work 30 hours a week, telecommute as much as I can and the rest of the time I'm either out in the field or at the office which is a 1/2 hour Metro ride away in Delhi (again, blessing the boon that is the Metro for giving people a cushy way to beat the horrible traffic and travel long distances). I'm going to be tramping over some old ground, and breaking some new, and that's comforting and exciting. The 30 hours a week is going to be stretchable, since it's not as though I can clock in at 9 and log off at 3. I may be working more or less constantly through the day, stepping carefully around kid's schedules and activities.
Fortunately for me, Y's school just bought over a well-known Gurgaon daycare, stamped their (school) brand on them and the daycare is now installed and operational on the 1st floor of Y's school building. I've registered her for a 2-hour program with them, starting from January 1st week which is when school reopens after the Xmas break. She heads up one floor after school is over, eats lunch at the daycare, and they look after her until 2.30 pm when she gets onto the school transport to return home. Ads and she will probably return home around the same time every afternoon and hopefully I should have wound up work by that time.
Fingers crossed! Wish me luck!

Snapshots

It's been a long week (fortnight in the case of Ads) for the children as they've had extended hours to practice for their annual day (Ads) and Sports Day (Y). Ads was in a group dance (loosely based on Kalaripayattu), a short 2 minute performance with 7 other boys. He was most excited since he got to hold a shiny sword and prance around! Y participated in 2 obstacle races with her class. Along with a couple other of the youngest kids, she got selected to "inaugurate" the school "Olympics" by releasing some balloons into the air. There were no winners or losers and all the children got medals for participation. It was very nicely done, short and sweet. All of last week, after coming back from school, Y would tell me "Amma, today I won last, but on Saturday I will win first!" :))

Some snapshots from yesterday - Y is the one in the purple jacket.

Toddling off after the race.

Waiting for the "bucket race" to start.

Medal time.

Ads in his costume (Y got frightened looking at all that makeup!)

Focaccia bread on a griddle

I read this lovely recipe for making a focaccia-like bread on a tawa/griddle (Thanks, Sangeetha, for this and other great recipes!). I did a little tinkering around - I did not have wheat bran and I mixed the wheat flour with maida in about a 1:1 proportion. I'm not sure how the original recipe would have tasted (it looks GREAT, doesn't it? :)) but mine did have a distinct focaccia-like look and feel. The best thing is that there is no baking required and it takes very little time and effort to make this bread. As always, my children are opposites in everything they do. I made the dish specifically for Ads but he didn't like it whereas Y wolfed it down and asked for more :)

Mughal chronicles

Alex Rutherford is the pen-name of the husband-wife writer team of Michael and Diana Preston. Their Empire of the Moghul series of books is currently a trilogy. The first book, Raiders from the North, is about Babur's initial conquest of Hindustan. The second one, Brothers at war, is about Humayun's legacy, his long dreary years of battle and wandering in the Indian subcontinent - from Kabul to Agra and Delhi to Rajasthan to Lahore and back to Agra - as he fought off and subdued the machinations of his half-brothers to keep him from the throne which he considered rightfully his. The third book, Ruler of the World, takes off from Humayun's death, the ascension of 13-year old Akbar to the throne and his consolidation of the Mughal empire, and his troubled relationships with his sons especially Salim.

The trilogy is fascinating to anybody who likes historical fiction, as I do, particularly if the Mughal era and the preceding 2 centuries are of interest (again, check!). The amount of research that has gone into these books is evident from detailed descriptions of everything from styles of dress and decor, food, jewellery, weapons and  household implements, and new technologies of that period. The Baburnama, Humayun-nama and Akbarnama/Ain-i-Akbari have been extensively used as foundation research material but the focus is on drawing a picture of the first 3 Mughal kings as people, individuals who were husbands, friends, sons, fathers and brothers, not necessarily their portraiture as administrators/rulers; so to that extent, a significant portion does comprise creative licenses taken as to how the characters thought, felt, said and did. For example, it is known that Akbar married one (or two) Rajput princesses and in fact it is probable that he did marry one of the princesses from Amber (Amer) near Jaipur, but historians disagree over her existence and her identity. Almost nothing is known of this husband-wife relationship so the authors have interpreted it in their own way. As our guide in Fatehpur Sikri asked me, with a twinkle in his eye, as he guided us through the city "Are you thinking of Hrithik Roshan?" I replied with a straight face "No actually, I was thinking of Prithviraj Kapoor"! 
Military strategies and battles have been recounted in great detail, so the book can seem somewhat slow. Having been to a lot of the significant places described in the book brought it incredibly alive for me. Highly recommended if you are into Mughal/Indian history. The authors are planning to come out with 2 more books - looking forward to them!

I don't know how she does it

After a long time, I enjoyed, really enjoyed, a book. The type of enjoyment that comes when you are nodding along with the author at every page, when you have so many OMG moments (as in: OMG!!! She could be talking about ME!). "I don't know how she does it" by Allison Pearson did that for me. Note of caution: The only only reason I probably enjoyed the book so much is because I could identify, if not myself, then many of my friends, in so many of it's pages. So, nope, I am not setting the book up for universal popularity here :) I remember reading "Bridget Jones's diary" back when I was 24 and giggling over it and thinking what a wonderful read it was. I recently tried to read it again and all I could think of was "What crap is this. How did I ever enjoy this nonsense?" So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that there is a time and a place and a life-stage to enjoy any good book and I just happened to be right there for this one.

Okay, now that all disclaimers and caveats are out of the way....:)) 

I picked up the book because I saw a TV promo about an upcoming movie based on this book and it seemed interesting so I googled it and ordered a copy from the library. You can read about the book here at Amazon. In ways subtle and non-subtle, wise and crass, comic and tragic, poignant and flippant, the author sketches out the many many dilemmas of working mothers. The book is funny, sad, ironic, penetrating - often all in one page. It resonanted with me even as it brought back memories of my days as a working mother, and the struggles and frustrations of all the Kate Reddys I know.
I also ordered Samhita Arni's Mahabharata but before Ads and I could read more than a few pages, it had been requested and borrowed by a very eager 12-year old neighbour who is heavily into mythology and  history. Knowing a tween BOY who LOVES READING and loves HISTORY is such a pleasure that I promptly lent it to him. Now we wait for the book to come back before we can start on it.

What I love about this time of year

Winter is setting in. The sun is weak, flights and trains have been getting delayed due to the infamous Delhi fog, and the warm clothes have been aired and are all ready to be worn. My kids are very excited and keep asking me "Amma, when can we wear GLOVES?"!!!

I know people crib all the time about the winters in this part of India, but I love this season. Especially now, when it's still autumn but steadily getting colder, when the mornings and evenings are chilly but still warm enough for the kids to shrug off their jackets after a few minutes of playing outside. Delhi weather is so monumentally unpleasant for 7 months of the year, but between Diwali and Holi, I enjoy it to the hilt. Even in dreary January when most people are waiting for the cold to end, I feel only dread for the long months of burn-and-swelter that lie ahead of me :)

So. What I love about autumn/winter/spring:

1. Picnics!!! Everything that needs to be done outdoors, 'tis the season to do it. Especially picnics, which one can do in style because Delhi has so many large and well-maintained parks, scattered all over the place. The larger parks are atleast 70-80 acres in size, which means on any one excursion you would only explore a small part of it. We've set ourselves a target of a picnic every weekend - we'll see how well we do :)

2. The long-sleeved t-shirts come out and the capris/shorts/sleeveless clothes get packed away. One can revert to one's hirsute natural self :) Less grooming = more time!!

3. Stylish clothes! Stockings, jackets, pashminas, turtlenecks, stoles, leggings, boots - all these get their day in the sun. Even stodgy corporate types look nice as they leave for work wearing suits and blazers.

4. The pleasure of having a steaming cup of ginger-and-clove chai is something else during the cold season. I'm too much of a chai addict to not have several hot cups even when its a blazing 42 degrees outside, but during the winter it is pure bliss.  

5. The markets full of colourful produce - large juicy brinjals, methi, spinach, radishes, guavas, long red carrots, capsicum and fresh sweet peas which Ads and I love to pop straight into our mouths. 

6. The torture of leaving the warmth of the comforter/razaai and getting out of bed in the mornings, balanced by the exquisite anticipation of getting back into it during bedtime! The delights of snuggling into small warm bodies in the middle of the night (in the summer, it's all I can do not to throw the kids violently off me when they get too close in the bed!)

7. Having alfresco lunch everyday in a sunny balcony. Food just tastes better when the warm sun is beating down on you and there's a good book on hand. I see people already heading down during lunchtime with blankets and hampers and having an impromptu picnic on the lawns.

8. Not having to apply sunscreen - a job I hate doing and which always falls to my share. 

9. I'd say eating makki di roti and sarson ka saag except that I am not such a fan of either. Still, it will be nice to have it a couple of times.

Drat - I should have been able to make it a round 10 :)

Review of Ra-One

I wanted to review Ra-One after we saw it more than a fortnight ago. I took Ads and Y and the 12-year old son  of one of my neighbours (aside: felt very proud to manage 3 kids all by myself!!). This neighbour's son was very enthusiastic about watching the movie and Ads had heard it was a superhero movie and wanted to see it too. Y conveniently sleeps off in most movies (the darkness and for some reason the noise, lulls her to sleep!) so I had no worries about her witnessing any scenes of violence and/or scantily clad females. 

Now here's the thing. I went to see Ra-One a good 2-3 weeks after it's release and after hearing/reading about how bad it was (and really, not a single soul said the movie was even halfway decent), my expectations were understandably very very low. As Ads would say, they were at minus infinity :) So obviously, this frame of mind to a certain extent (but only a teensey-weensy bit) explains why I found the movie to be not bad at all. It was ok. It wasn't bad, it wasn't good. I wouldn't pay the money to go see it again. SRK played out his standard half-dozen expressions. Kareena Kapoor looked hot, as usual. There were the usual foot-thumping songs, the usual melodrama. In fact, it was exactly like any other Hindi movie. So the horrible reviews had me a little puzzled especially as I thought  the SFX were pretty good and classy. The scenes which are supposed to be from inside a gaming console were especially very well-done and realistic (err...I meant game-like). My humble opinion is that everyone has been a tad unfair on panning the movie. I don't think the producers ever claimed they were making a work of cinematic art. Ra-One is in the same genre as Robot (quite as entertaining) and much much better than Krrish. Indeed it is the same genre as the movies that can be clubbed under "mindless summer Hollywood blockbusters". Transformers, Spiderman, Fantastic Four, Superman, anyone?? 

On the same topic, if there was a movie worth watching, go watch Tintin. The animation is just superb! Superb! The performance capture technology is a little surreal because it looks so real (the character's faces do look somewhat more wooden than one might expect). In the middle of the movie, I actually leaned over to S and asked him if they'd changed from animation to real people. It was that good! Also, it's based on my favourite Tintin books and it's a trilogy, so lots to look forward to! But, strictly for Tintin fans, methinks. Ads simply didn't get why amma and appa were so excited :)

Recent pet peeves

1. Kids running upto the convenience store in our condos, halfway through playtime, and buying 1 large bag of Lays chips, each, everyday. No kidding. I see the same kids doing this everyday, and there are a lot of them!
2. Aunties and uncles whom I don't know, commenting on Y's skinny appearance and glasses and dispensing free advice on how to correct both. 
3. Kids not saying hello and not acknowledging my hellos. My kids do it too! I've been prodding Ads for 5 years to say please, thank you, and hello and even now he doesn't do it a lot of the time without some prompting. How long is it going to take???? 
4. Lavish birthday parties and even lavish-er return gifts. Cakes are being cut in class and gifts to each of the 25 children distributed then and there. This is separate from the birthday party to which all the kids are invited and from where Ads returns with laden sacks of goodies. I'm going to have a chat with his class teacher as soon as I can. What happened to old-fashioned, simple birthday celebrations?
5. Other kids calling my son Idiot, patla, buddhu. I'd go on but what's the point. They also call other children these same names but obviously it hurts when they say such things to your own child. My kids would never dream of calling anybody such names - it's a simple thing to teach your child not to, y' know. It's called manners. Sadly, meeting a well-mannered child has become, for me, a ca(u)se for hope. Or maybe I should say, a hopeless cause!

So these are my top reasons to crib this season. What's yours? I'm disappointed and appalled at parenting standards. Is it me, or is it Gurgaon, or what is it?