Superman - Man of steel

Our social committee had organised a movie night for all staff at Cine-Leisure mall today. A whole screen was booked for our staff only and a mini-buffet was set before the screening. Teresa has come to drop Yohaan to my office.  And as all things must have some extra element of excitement, she got off at the wrong bus stop! After a few phone calls and a bit of coordination and pacing up and down the streets by me, she finally reached the spot! Yohaan was super excited and was eager to watch superman.

 

The movie started and since it revolved around how Superman was born and sent to earth etc., the superman, as we know him (in his suit), didn't appear until almost the mid of the movie. However, in the meanwhile, Yohaan' s impatience kept growing and in a fairly quiet movie hall we often heard "where is superman?" "is he superman?" "why is the boy crying?" "is he baby superman? "is he boy superman?" much to our embarrassment he spoke loudly and frequently! Thankfully my colleagues didn't seem to mind his occasional murmuring or at least were courteous enough not to say anything to us.

Overall, I liked the movie, I liked the new superman and his old father played by Russell Crow! They looked super amazing and like real supermen! Yohaan' s interest in the movie grew after the arrival of superman in his superman attire. But the comments didn't stop! They just changed to "Super", "awesome!" "that's so cool, mama". It is an amazing feeling to hear these comments from a boy who has just turned 4!

 

Towards the end,  when superman's power weakens and he zooms past trying to rescue someone he let's out a loud groan. Yohaan wasn't too pleased with his super hero becoming weak and our taxi ride home was filled with questions about how could Superman have become weak?!

 
And then came the kiss! It was an unexpected and an unnecessary kiss even in my eyes, but Yohaan's expression summed it up entirely. The moment they kissed, he looked at me and said "ahuh!!??" in his own sweet and innocent accent! His Baba laughed at his expression and then promptly got a good smack on his hand for laughing at him! Hahaha...

Thanks to Superman for the wonderful time we spent with our, little superman!

20 June 2013

 

Dragon Boat

Mott MacDonald Sports and Recreation club (MM SRC) a group within MM Singapore, is run by a bunch of active and creative staff members who are sponsored by the company to bring the staff together on several sporty, social and team building activities. These include bowling challenges, badminton and soccer practice and matches, barbecue at the beach, birthdays of the month and new year dinner and dance and several others. One activity recently organised by the social club was that of 'Dragon boat' training lesson.

Jumping at this opportunity at exploring something new, I signed up and showed up on time at the Kallang Gaelic Dragon boating venue on the 14th of April 2013. Filled with nervous excitement and accompanied by my colleague and partner in crime, LeeKhiang, who is an Environmental Engineer, I geared up with the life vest (not a jacket just a thinner version of it) and my light weight wooden paddle. At the venue, there were other people gathering around who looked really professional and were wearing similar clothes to represent various teams. They were preparing for a challenge for which they would be travelling to Borocay for the dragon boating race and were there that evening to practice their opening group dance! Needless to say, we looked and felt like complete amateurs (at dancing and paddling!) and were praying that we'd blend into the crowd or become invisible for a while! Much to our relief, the Gaelic Dragon's didn't have any opening dance before the training!

It was an exceptionally good day in Singapore when we set out towards the boat. It was slightly windy with a light cloud cover, enough to hide the harsh sunrays but keeping it bright enough to enjoy the outdoors and cool enough to enjoy sweating. Best of all, it wasn't raining. It's unlike me to say that, 'not raining' was a good thing, as I associate rain with fun! But in this case, rain would mean the probability of thunder and of course, lightening! On the days when rain is accompanied by lightening, all boats are called back and that would mean there would be no training lesson. For that day, I was happy with no rain as the fun thing. :) So, with the weather in our favour we stood in front of our boat and the trainer 'Lee' gave us a good 10 mins induction on how to hold the paddle, how to sit and how to paddle (practicing in the air) using the back muscles rather then the strength of the arms and other safety tips. Hmmm, momentarily going back to Lee, the name must have brought a very dashing Chinese looking young trainer with a muscular lean body and bulging biceps in your minds! Right? Well you wish! Sorry to disappoint you, but, our trainer Mr. Lee was a be-spectacled, senior Irish gentleman with a very polite demeanor and whose cheeks kept turning a hint of darker pink with every minute in the heat. Yes! I surely caught you stereotyping there! Guilty as charged!

Now, going back to the training. To the say the least, it was tough! Not recommended for the weak-hearted. Trust me, when I signed up for paddling, secretly, I was hoping that I could stop if I were tired and let the rest continue and no one would notice. However, in reality, stopping for a break was out of the question! The boat is narrow and if you are not paddling then you are bound to be hit in the face or back by the movements of your teammates around you. Well, no reason to panic, I did ok and didn't take any secret breaks or punches. The training was divided into three main points; Technique(style), timing(teamwork) and power. We practiced with varying combinations of these three points until we were sore. The training was well spaced out and we paddled for a fixed number of counts (starting with 5 and progressing upto 60 over 1.5 hours) with 30-60-120 seconds breaks in between and some additional training tips every now and then for better coordination and speed.

One part of the correct style is to look at your partner while paddling so that the body posture is right and you also know if your timing is in sync with the others. So, in other words, you are not looking at the water or at the scenery around you! This was another surprise that I had to deal with. I had imagined I would be paddling away and looking at the birds and the skyline of Singapore along in the Kallang river...hmm not really. We went all the way up to the 'sands by the bay' area and finally stopped for while to take in the view. Suddenly, it felt very peaceful and serene to be sitting in a quiet boat in the middle of the river. Taking deep breaths we absorbed the modern beauty around us.

Our captain turned the boat around and we continued our journey tracing our steps back to the starting point when I dropped my paddle into the river! Hmmm, the boat had to go back to fetch my paddle and as a punishment for dropping it, I was asked to paddle the whole boat back alone for a count of 30 paddles!!! (thankfully two experienced people joined along to save my life and we made it ashore! Phew!) What an exhilarating end to an exhilarating evening! I'll surely be going back for more...

Paddles up!

 (the picture of the boat is an illustration, we looked almost like that though our boat was less fancy)

(Sana and LeeKhiang posing with our paddles)

Monkey morning!

Today started off as a regular school day morning. My hubby left home and I got my boy ready for school and off we went to the bus stop. An interesting duo we were, "a groggy-eyed mama and a grumpy baby". Well, so far it was a fairly boring and regular morning but not until long.

When I reach the stop, all of a sudden, I heard some commotion in the corridor near the bus stop. The bus stop I am talking about, is really just the front lobby of our condo apartment, where the school buses pick -up and drop kids. A couple of people ran out of the corridor and much to my amazement, emerged a full grown monkey after them. He sat on a bench, just about 10 meters away from us and looked deep at us with unflinching eyes. It was about half the height of my son with a 'dude, what's up?', sort of friendly gait.

He stared at me perhaps, trying to gauge what our next move will be and I stared back with pretty much the same thoughts racing in my mind. Finally, after a long minute of staring, screaming, oh-ing and ah-ing in awe and astonishment, I decided it was time to attempt a move towards the bus. I darted towards the nearest open spot. To my horror, the monkey got off the bench and followed us. I quickly reached the bus and handed over my son and his water bottle to the aunty in the bus and asked her to shut the door. I stood by the bus while my sister-in-law called for the security guard. Then, cooly, just like he is one of us, with a regular groggy morning feel, the monkey went past me and climbed up the compound wall.

He came, he saw and he left! Guess if he was out on a 'human-study' tour, he would have learnt that 'human mornings' were not very different to 'monkey mornings'! Inspite of these brief moments of commotion, the kids in the bus seemed calm and disinterested and surely, it appeared that neither the kids nor the monkey could understand what the fuss and panic I was making was all about!

Oh well, at least his visit made my morning a special one!

Familiar

Few long months ago I left the familiar behind.
The streets and the people,
everything that I belonged to
and that belonged to me...

These months taught me that real joys in life aren't those which
we race after but those which we miss en route!
A shared cup of tea, a game of scrabble, an evening walk
and those familiar smiles...

Ordeals made my mind tougher and then began the consolation.
Weaving a new spirit into the gloom
and joy into the new spirit.
To carry me on...

Newness faded away, excitement died down and ennui crept in.
The new suddenly felt familiar again and the old,
archived to a distance memory,
to flip thru on a lazy Sunday afternoon...

The Road Not Taken - by Robert Frost

This is one of my all time favourite poems that always inspires me in trying times. Life is about the choices we make. Those choices, will change what lies ahead of us. An overtly simple thought but one that leaves a lasting impact on my mind. It's simple words, unique rhyme scheme and soulful underlying meaning make it a wonderfully endearing poem.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference.


Our move to Singapore has made me associate more closely to this poem and I know, we too, one day ages and ages hence will look back and say, "and that has made all the difference."

Images

*Stoic gazes
Of *droning regularity
Mirror images
Like peas in a pod

Doing the daily trek
Immersed in
Lush fields of a
*Technological wonderland

Impeccably
Dressed to die for
Real sight for sore eyes
Yet! Indistinguishable!

Evading eyes looking
Through fading,
Merging and receding
Images...of me


*Stoic- unemotional, showing patience and endurance
*Droning- monotonous, routine
*Technological wonderland- their land of Iphones

Boredom - by Satyajit Mone (August 2012)

I proudly present, the first ever poem composed by Satyajit. The poem echoes and resonates our mutual feelings of longing and resultant boredom that has crawled in during our time away from each other. Indeed, separation from your lover does make a poet of you... ;) Well done my love!


Boring Days Boring Nights

Nothing to do but need to stay tight

I tell my wandering mind to stay calm
Destiny will soon fulfill what's written on my palm

Life has suddenly become void
Guess it’s time to listen to floyd

Empty mind is a devil's workshop, they say
It’s time to remain focused right away

Missing family is a dreadful thing
It’s as bad as a Scorpio’s sting

Hope this journey ends soon
So that I can see the Singapore monsoon

"Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind."- Marcel Proust

Not hopeless!

I swore on a certain day in my life, never to make that mistake again
But here I am on my own again, as promises are made only in pain
To be forgotten on that happy day, when life seems simple
When you have good luck and cheer, that causes you to dimple.

I suffer and so does he, not sure how we agreed this to be
Also suffers the tiny love, with mute grumbles, maybe?
Their desolation can only be greater than mine,
Outwardly, holding brave front, within, seeking intervention divine.

Prayers so hollow, anger, aggravation, so mighty that can swallow
Our innate inability to be content, leading us to a bottomless shallow!
Our Twin faiths and gods yet to no avail, cries rising with rising cadence
Still, amid this zany wrath, love strengthens our resolve immense.

I count the seconds of this world’s mammoth contraption
To unearth the imminent, the future, the prediction
I chase an ever receding horizon, not hopelessly, but with a hammer and a nail
To pin it down on the spot I choose, when refreshed happy days will unveil!

Yoyo's growing up...

As a baby, my boy has been very strong, supportive and loving all along. A real 'Chota Bheem' indeed! He may also be the only baby on this planet who may have commuted about 90,000 road kms within less than a year when we did the daily commute together to Abu Dhabi while living in Discovery Gardens (Zen). Waking up at 6 am, enjoying the drive and co-cooing, oohing, aahing all along the road in the carseat and his mama by his side who tried hard (in vain)to squeeze in short naps during the tiring commute, with poor Baba at the wheel 6 days a week. After the day's events and all of us being out of home for a straight 12-13 hours (6am - 7pm), tired to the core, the work did not end. In fact, it only began!

One of the main activity upon returning home, apart from taking care of Yoyo, playing, bathing, feeding, eating, taking turns to have a bath, catching up with each other while Baby TV came to our rescue, was the religious, rigourous washing and sterilizing of Yoyo's dozen bottles(in no exaggeration- babysitting ones plus the bottles we needed for feeding him at home at night). For this I give complete credit to Satya as he did not skip this routine of driving and washing even for a single day!

With no time on hand to manage a sick baby, we struggled to ensure that he did not fall sick or at least as less as possible. Hence, as a paranoid set of parents we gave Yohaan's babysitter a clean set of 6-8 bottles everyday. A clean one for each time he had to be fed the 30-60-90-120 ml that he needed as he grew older. With added months the number of bottles went down, then the commute for him went down from a 120kms to a 1-2 kms just few lanes away after one year on the road and eventually just to a lift ride away.(as we had moved into a new home in DG in the same building as the babysitter, what a joy that was!, until it lasted that is...)

Today, it feels like we are light years away from those days though this was our routine all the way from Yoyo's birth up to his 3rd birthday. As he grew older, the needs for washing bottles reduced more significantly than other needs and I am now very close to breaking free from using bottles totally, as last night was the first night when Yoyo agreed to have milk from a glass instead of his bottle. He absolutely adores milk and until last night he has had a ritualistic method for drinking it from his bottle with his favourite orange blanket in his hand.

It took a bit of threatening, cajoling and finally bribing to get him to agree to drink and to finish the same milk that he refused to drink whenever it was presented outside of the bottle. As mundane as this may sound to some, I consider this a significant achievement in Yoyo's growth and mine as a mother. I'm proudly progressing as a mother who is first diaper free and now bottle free!! Yay, its time to celebrate indeed!

Though, sadly, it reflects that my Yoyo in not a baby anymore and is growing up fast...

Small Gestures!

My new life has imprisoned me in yet another mundane and routine activity, that is the daily ride on the bus.

Each morning I take the bus no. 106 from right outside my house to Orchard Street, right outside my office. It is a relatively effortless, stressfree, quiet, peaceful, freezing cold (hate ACs) and sometimes boring hour each way! On the positive side, this gives me the time I deserve during the day to devote to my passion for reading which was almost non-existent in the last few years, as I was doing the driving myself between Abu Dhabi an Dubai.

Due to the way my starting points are positioned I am always guaranteed a seat within one or two stops of my boarding the bus if not immediately. Yesterday, I was running less than 10 mins late but had missed one of the long buses and got into a regular size bus with a lot of other of my daily co-passengers who also seemed to have missed the earlier bus. I would blame it on the fact that it was a rainy morning and people walking outdoors with umbrellas in their hands tends to walk slowly, carefully and painfully in the way of the others trying to make a dash towards the buses they can see flying past them.

Since it was exceptionally crowded due to the circumstances, my chances at a seat were reduced until the next main metro station stop called Clementi but I was standing right next to a person who appeared to be packing up her Iphone headphones into her bag and preparing to alight. Sensing that she would get off soon, I tapped the shoulder of an elderly lady (I wouldn't call her old, somewhat similar age or a bit younger than our mothers) to point to the seat for her to take. She had a crepe bandage on her forearm, like the one we tie when we have sprained an ankle and I had noticed it when we boarded the bus together. This simple gesture of mine of giving up a seat, that was not even mine, but could have been mine, brought such immense joy and relief to this lady and seemed to have reassured her faith in the kindness that is capable only to the human heart. She thanked me and waited to be seated. As luck would have it, just after our little exchange of smiles the person sitting next to the one alighting also woke up to realise its his stop and got up. So this elderly lady and I sat down next to each other. She explained to me that she was in an accident with a taxi and her arm was broken and operated on with screws placed inside and its recovering very slowly. She got off about 20 mins later and thanked me profusely again, blessed me, graciously addessing me as "my dear" and we wished each other a good day!

As I said, I take this bus everyday and have an hour to survive in it so I am usually intent on keeping a seat when I get one. As you can imagine, its not easy and no fun at all reading a book while being pushed foward and backward with everytime the bus driver applies his brakes (which is very often, mind you, on the crowded, busy morning streets). However, I am now determined to giving up my seat to any old person I see next time, as the pains of standing for a few stops is insignificant in comparison to the joy I instilled, the smiles we exhchanged and the blessing I recieved for such a small action!