McDonad's vs my burger

Ekagra doesn't like eating anything except some fruits. It is really very difficult to feed him the main rice-based meal. But one thing that he likes is McDonald's burger.

Two weeks back, Ekagra told us that he wanted to eat burger. We took him to the  McDonald's outlet at the Forum Value Mall and bought a McChicken burger for him. Then last week Gitika was not well and it was impossible for me to feed him rice. So I took him to the McDonald's outlet again. He was happy. But now almost every day he asks us for burger. This morning Ekagra woke up from his sleep and told us that he wanted a burger in the bed!

I thought I would try preparing a burger myself today. So I bought a few burger-buns from Hypercity this morning and tried to prepare a burger for Ekagra in the evening. He was happy when he saw the burger being cooked in the microwave. But his expressions changed when I gave him to eat. He touched it, felt it and realized that it's not his favorite burger. He didn't eat even half!

Kids are actually much smarter than what we think.

Admission to Greenwood High

Ekagra would turn three in December this year and would start going to Nursery from next academic session (June 2011 onwards). We had two options - we would let him continue in Eurokids and then look for his Lower KG (LKG, KG-I, K-I) admission in the following year. Second option was to send him to a big school that has classes from nursery to class XII.

Honestly speaking, first option was only my option. Gitika never liked that. Getting admission to nursery is the easiest. It's usually on first-come-first-serve basis. After nursery, getting admission is not that easy. I thought of the first option because it's cheaper :-). One more year at Eurokids would cost us Rs 32,000; whereas admission fees-cum-tuition fees in good school would cost us more than 1 lakh rupees. I thought about the first option because our industry was recession hit and salaries were hardly growing in last three years.

But finally I was convinced by Gitika's arguments that it's better if we send him to a good school from nursery onwards. Gitika visited all the following schools:

1. Greenwood High
2. VIBGYOR High 
3. Deens Academy
4. Gopalan International School
5. New Horizon Gurukul School
6. Inventure Academy 
7. Delhi Public School, Bangalore East

Deens and Gopalan International School are at about 3 to 4 km from our residence. VIBGYOR is at at 5km, Gurukool at about 9km, and both Greenwood & Inventure at about 14km while DPS is about 20km There are some other schools in our vicinity - e.g., Gopalan National School and Ryan International School. These two were not in our shortlisted schools and didn't visit these.

We liked Greenwood High compared to all the other schools. It follows ICSE and IGCSE syllabus. The school provides ample opportunities for extra-curricular activities. We felt that this is the right school for Ekagra's overall development. Greenwood has a pre-activity center at Whitefield also where they have Nursery, LKG, and UKG and then students naturally transition to the main campus at Vartur Road. But we thought of giving him admission to the main campus itself.

Greenwood has started the admission for next academic session from this month (September 2010). Finally we gave him admission on September 6th. On that day, we reached the school early morning at 8:15AM. We first met the principal Aloycius D'Mello and had a chat with him at his office.

Ekagra would start attending nursery classes from June 2011 at Greenwood High International School.

Tonsured

It's a Hindu tradition that babies are tonsured. My parents told me that I was tonsured when I wast one month old. I think there is no definite rule regarding the time and people do it at their convenience.

Ekagra was two and half year old already and we were yet to tonsure him. His mother always wanted that we would go to Tirupati temple and will do the ritual there. I was always postponing that.

Finally we decided that we'd go to Tirupati in mid of June 2010. We were going to Tirupati for the first time. I was not sure how will be the environment there where hairs are shaved - will it be very crowded, will we be able to control Ekagra there in a crowded place etc. We had apprehensions. So we went for a middle ground. We decided that we'd shave his hairs at Green Trends saloon, AECS layout and offer the hairs at Tirumala.

Ekagra's started going to play-school just three days back on June 10th. I had a doubt if he would feel awkward in the school with his shaved head. I asked the head of the school. She said it was perfectly alright and now Ekagra won't feel anything.

On the sunday morning, June 13th, we went to Green Trends. Ohhhhh...what a scene it was! Ekagra resisted a lot while his hairs were shaved. He cried so much. I was holding him on my lap and it was difficult for me too. The actual shaving process hardly took five minutes.

Then we went to Tirupati the very same day and offered his hairs there. Well, it was not the perfect tonsure at Tirupati. We choose a middle ground thinking about Ekagra's possible discomfiture at Tirupati.

We bought two caps for him from Toys-n-Toys. He liked one of these. He was always wearing the red-cap for many days.

Play school at Eurokids

There are many play-schools in this AECS/Brookefield/Whitefield area - Eurokids, KidZee, PupilTree, Neev, WeCare etc. These are more of well-known play-schools. Apart from there, there are lots of other play-schools in the AECS layout area. We were interested in EuroKids and PupilTree. Both of these are about 3km from our residence. One of my friends son (Rup) was attending Erokids and another friends' daugther (Phool) were attending PupilTree.

Usually these schools admit kids from 1 year 10 month onwards. Ekagra was to turn two in the month of December 2009. We called up both Eurokids and PupilTree in the month of November 2009. PupilTree told me to contact them in January. For play-group, their annual fee was approximately Rs 50,000. The lady at Eurokids told me that I should contact them in November. Eurokids annual fee is about Rs 32,000.

We visited Eurokids in the month of November and met Tara Sharma, the head of this Eurokids. We asked her if we could send Ekagra to play-group from December 2009 onwards. Ekagra is December-born. So he would be 2.5 year in June 2010. So Tara told us that even if we send him to the play-group in December, he would continue in the same class in June as he won't go to Nursery. Again, Tara told us that when the classes would start after Christmas vacations, they would spend time in revising what was taught in the first half from June and then again they'd start preparing for the annual day. So she advised us to send Ekagra to play-group from June 2010 session.

There are two timing for the playschool - one starts at 8:45AM and the second one starts at 11:45AM. We booked a morning slot for Ekagra.

In the month of December, Gitika went to Eurokids again with my father. (I was recuperating from a surgery and couldn't drive). Ekagra's grand-father was interested in paying the first installment of the annual fee. Deuta didn't allow Gitika to pay it. Thus Ekagra got admitted to Eurokids.


Ekagra's play-group class started on June 10th, 2010. All the kids were crying for the first few days. Mothers also were present in the classes for first three or four days.

Now Ekagra don't cry when he goes to the school. Both Gitika and I go to drop him in the morning. (We've not availed of the transportation. Personally, we feel that Maruti vans are unsafe for kids to travel to school). Then Gitika again goes to pick him from the school at 11AM. I've not seen this scene yet; but Gitika told me that every day Ekagra comes out of the school smiling, running and saying mamma-mamma to Gitika. Of course, Gitika enjoys that.

Mickey Mania

Ekagra loves to watch cartoons. He watches Little Krishna, Bheem, Tom & Jerry, Mickey, Doraemon, Ninja Hattori and many other cartoon shows.  How does he pronounce these characters? He calls Krishna as Kikan. Mickey was Bicky in the beginning. Now he calls Micky. Donald is Dodald.  Doraemon is Dowam, Kiteretsu is Kitu. Bheem is Beem. Chinchan is Chi-Chen.

Ekagra's most favorite cartoon characters are Krishna and Mickey.He loved the Little Krishna shows aired in Nick sometime back. He'd stop crying if this show started in the TV. We recorded some of these using our handycam. Then we bought VCDs of all the episodes when these were available in the market. There were six DVDs packed in three titles called: Vrindavan, Warrior and Wondrous Feats. We'd play these during his lunch or dinner time. But then he started asking for these Little Krishna shows at any random time. We couldn't watch any other program in TV! Switch on the TV and he would demand Little Krishna. He would even go behind the TV to connect the audio-out and video-out wires!

Ekagra has recently caught a Mickey-mania. We bought him a story book of Mickey-Mouse when he was six months old. So he recognizes Mickey character since his early days. The latest craze started with a t-shirt that we bought for him a few months back from Toys-n-Toys. This dark blue t-shirt contains a picture of Mickey mouse.  All the time he wants to wear this Mickey t-shirt. In the morning when we change his dress for school, he wants that. If he is wearing that in the night and we want to change his dress before going to bed, he resists and creates big tantrums. He'll wake up in the morning to watch the Mickey mouse clubhouse show. Ekagra has started chanting the magic password: "Meeska Mooska Mickey Mouse".  He loves the Hot Dog song and would dance to the tune of this song.



I guess that day is not very far off when Ekagra will tell me: "Deuta, take me to Disney Land". :-)

First long drive

I went to US for a few weeks in the month of March-April 2008. My parents came and stayed with Gitika and Ekagra while I was traveling. On coming back from US,  I wanted to take my whole family for a vacation. I thought of going to Pondicherry as my parents haven't seen a sea yet. Pondicherry is about 320km (about 200 miles) from Bangalore.

Ekagra was three and half months old at that time. My father was a bit reluctant to travel. First he thought that it was too much of  along drive and then Krishu was too young to travel. Gitika, maa and I could convince him about the trip and finally we were on our way out for Pondicherry. The express-way till Krishnagiri (NH-7) was too good. After Krishnagiri,  we took a state highway and half of the road was in bad condition. We started at 6:30AM from Bangalore and reached Pondicherry at 1:30PM with two thirty minutes break on the way.

We stayed at Pondicherry for two nights. We stayed a Sea -Side Guest House run by Sri Aurobindo trust. We enjoyed the trip very much. We didn't face any problem with our three months old baby Krishu.  He was still breast-feeding and we didn't have to care much about his food. (As I write this post, he is about 2 year 5 month. If we travel now, his food is one of our main concerns as he can't eat any spicy food cooked outside.)

Annaprashan (অণ্ণপ্রশন) - the function to celebrate first meal of rice

In our side of India (i.e., Assam and Bengal etc.), we celebrate a ceremony called Annaprashan at around 5th month of the baby. On this day, there is some puja and then the maternal uncle (mama) gives the first rice to baby. It's usually followed by a lunch with family and friends.

Since we were in Bangalore at that time, and Gitika's brothers couldn't travel, we decided to celebrate this function at ISKCON temple Bangalore. (We heard from some friends that we can celebrate events like Annaprashan, birthday etc at ISKCON temple).

The date chosen was June 16th, 2008. My father told us that it's a good day for Annaprashan.  (Well, I don't believe in astrology; but sometime I have to go by these dates). We went to the ISKCON temple about a week before the occasion and met some priest there. We took an appointment for June 16th. They told us to reach there at 8AM. They told us that we've to give a donation of Rs 3500/- for this ceremony. They said six persons from us can have breakfast at the temple after the ceremony.

My cousin Piju and his wife Monali came from Hyderabad to attend the ceremony. We reached the temple at 8 AM. Two priests performed the ceremony there. They gave a silver spoon, a silver bowl  and a Bhagawad-Gita as gifts to Krishu.

We invited four families for dinner at our place. Gitika cooked an excellent dinner.

Mahekiya (মাহেকীয়া) - Function to celebrate one month

We celebrate the completion of first month of a baby in Assam. There is some puja followed by lunch or dinner. When Krishu completed one year, there was no one from our families with us. (I wrote about it in an earlier post. My mother-in-law had to rush back home). We went to a temple in Banasvadi to offer puja on January 25th.  Since the next day was a holiday (Republic Day), we decided to host the lunch on January 26th, 2008. We were then living in a rented house at Kasturi Nagar (House#211, 1D Cross). Our landlord Shankar-Ramen was kind enough to allow us to host the party at the terrace of the house.  For us that was also an occasion to meet some of our old friends. We were new to Bangalore and haven't met many of them after reaching Bangalore three months back.

I was looking for a decent north-Indian restaurant in Indira Nagar area who also does catering for parties. One of my colleagues Ashok recommended Raga at CMH road. I went to Raga and discussed the menu with Sandhya Pujari, the owner of Raga. The food was good. We had about 50+ guests that day.

Here is the link to the photo album for this function.

Ekagra goes biking

Today we bought a bicycle for Ekagra. We bought a tricyle for him when he was 1 year and 4 months old. He didn't enjoy the tricycle much. Nowadays in our apartment complex, all kids of his age ride bicycles. When we go out for a walk in the evening, Ekagra wants to ride on his friends bicycles. Sometime he tends to snatch a bicycle from some other kid of his age. Gitika has been telling me for last couple of weeks that it's time we buy a bicycle for Ekagra.

Today we went to a cycle shop at Marathahalli. It's on the first floor while going towards old airport from Marathahalli bridge. We saw some bicycles there. There were bikes of many brands there. Some of the brands were unknown and possibly made in China. We didn't like the manner of the guys at that shop. So we soon left the shop. We went to a BSA showroom named BSA Go at Koramangala. It's on the left hand side after crossing the Ejipura traffic signal while going from Indira Nagar side.

We found BSA Go store to be good. They had many varieties of cycles of BSA brand. They have an extensive catalog too apart from the models on display. They told us that they can assemble any of the bikes from the catalog in about three hours time. We decided to buy from one of the models on display. We then had a confusion; whether to buy a 14 inch or a 16 inch one. We called a friend whose kid is of the same age as Ekagra and their son has a bicycle. They told us that they bought a 14" one;  but later found that their son can now ride on a 16" one also. So we decided to buy the 16".

We selected two different models: one was priced Rs 2500 and the other one Rs 3150. The one at Rs 2500 was ok; but it was a bit girlish. So we decided to buy the other one. It's named BSA Go Biking. It's has two colours in it: black and yellow. It has two years warranty on the frames and fork for any manufacturing defect.

In the evening, we took Krishu out for biking inside our apartment complex. He is not yet able to do full paddle. But he enjoyed the evening.

Shopping for the expecting baby

There is some superstition in Assam (probably in other parts of India too) that we shouldn't buy anything for the baby before he/she is born! Some of our relatives still believe this and told us not to buy anything for the baby before his birth. So what does these superstitious people do? They get second-hand materials for the new-born baby from friends and relatives. Gitika and I don't believe in this crap.

My parents visited us when Gitika was into the 8th and 9th month into the pregnancy. We told them that we wanted to buy some of the stuffs for the baby that will be needed during our stay in the hospital. They didn't object. Next, we had to find a store. We were new to Bangalore and were yet to be familiar with Toys-n-Toys, Apple-of-My-I etc. We thought we'd go to a mall and find some shops there. Dabu also joined us that day. All of us went to Garuda Mall in Magrath Road. We bought a lot of things from Shoppers Stop for the baby - wrappers, blankets, cap, socks, nappies, etc. Interestingly, I didn't know the word diaper till that day. Instead of diapers, I bought some Johnson & Johnson nappies for the baby. I didn't know the difference between nappies and diapers then. :-)

Gitika washed all of those by hand and kept it ready in a separate bag. Good that we were prepared with all these. In the hospital, we spent some time in a ward before getting shifted into a room. In the ward, we saw several new-born babies whose parents were unprepared (or perhaps superstitious).  The hospital provides only one green coloured cloth. I saw the hospital staffs chiding those parents. I had to buy only diapers. (I was still figuring out the difference between diapers and those disposable J & J nappies).

Fisher Price Rocker

One integral part of Ekagra's journey till now is the Fisher Price Rocker that we bought for him when he was about four months old.  We went to buy the Fisher Price Bouncer for him from Orkidz at 80 feet road, Indiranagar. But we found that the bouncer was good till only about six months old. He was almost about to complete fourth month then. We didn't like to spend about Rs 3000/- just for a month or so. Then we found this rocker which can be used by a newborn to a toddler. The price was Rs 3600/-; but we found that he could use it for three years. And we did the right choice. He has thoroughly enjoyed it. Usually Ekagra loses attraction of a new thing very quickly, in a few days or weeks. The rocker is something he is still attracted to even after two years. He watches TV sitting there. He sometimes goes to sleep while resting on it. He turns the pages of a book or a newspaper while sitting on it. It was really worth buying the rocker.

Gift from Synopsys

We received a gift from my company Synopsys after Krishu was born. We received a packet sent from US through DHL. It contained a hand-written congratulatory message from the CEO Aart de Geus to the parents. It also contained a t-shirt for the baby with Baby Synopsoid written on it. It was a very nice gesture that Synopsys does to its employees whoever have newborn babies.

The shirt was a bit big though for a newborn. Ekagra wore it for the first time when he was 1 year 8 month old. The day he wore the shirt for the first time was something special for us. Will write a separate post on that.

Why this blog?

We've been thinking of writing some posts on Ekagra ever since he was born. But then I was procrastinating. First we thought that we'd post these in my primary blog Beberibang. But Beberibang has become too much of a hodge-podge (a khichdi). So we thought we'd set up a dedicated blog on Ekagra. But why?

The amount of joy that a kid brings to the family is just tremendous. But there are lot of challenges too. We want to share the joy as well challenges of raising Ekagra through this blog. We would like to capture important milestones and though-processes (of parents and of the baby) in and around Ekagra. We don't intend to make it just a photo-blog. Of course, there will be pictures too.

The plan is to gift this blog to Ekagra on his 10th or 12th birthday or whenever he understands about internet, blog etc.

We started the blog when he is into his 2nd year and 4th month. So we have a backlog of 28 months to cover first. Some of the topics that we plan to cover next are:

• Gift from Synopsys
• Financial planning for kid. Our search for a Child Plan and why we decided not to buy one from the existing products.
• Function to celebrate one month
• Trip to Pondicherry during the 4th month.
• Annaprashan (the ceremony when he starts eating rice)
• First birthday
• His first walk
• Admission into play school
• Second birthday
• Searching for a school for his nursery admission etc.

First month

Oh yeah, first month was really a tough time. Ekagra didn't sleep during the night for almost the whole of the first month. He was probably getting adjusted to the new environment after coming out of the comfort of mother's womb.

Dabu (my cousin) went to Assam for his semester break. Gitika's mom were with us. But we got a bad news: one of Gitika's uncles passed away who were also their neighbour at their native place. So my mother-in-law had to go back home. In third week, we were alone with the new born baby. My parents couldn't come as it was the time for panchayat (local body at the village level) elections and my mother was on elections duty. I couldn't go to office and worked from home during that period.

Finally Junti khuri (my aunt) and my cousin Jaanmoni volunteered to come here from Assam. They stayed with us for about a month. We will forever be grateful to my auntie and Jaanmoni for that help.

From baby-of-Gitika to Ekagra (Krishu)

He was officially nameless and remained baby-of-Gitika for initial some days. But Gitika had already started calling him with probably hundred different nick names.

Before he was born, both Gitika and I shortlisted some names. We bought three books on Indian names of boys and girls. One of these were written by Menaka Gandhi. I don't remember the names of the other two books. We googled for names. Both of us don't believe in astrology. We thought we won't consult astrologers to give our baby a name. Instead we would decide his or her name. We had certain criteria for the name:

1. It should be a sanskrit name with a nice meaning.
2. It should not be a commonly used name. (Shout for Manjunath in a moderately crowded place in Bangalore and you'll be surprised if half of the people respond to you:-) )
3. It shouldn't be a tongue-twisting name (my name Jyotirmoy is kinda tongue-twisting for people from south-India)
4. It shouldn't be a long name, preferably within three syllable.

On the basis of our criteria, we shortlisted some ten names of a baby boy and some ten names of a girl. We liked the name Ekagra (একাগ্র in Assamese and एकाग्र in Hindi) most for a boy.  Eka in sanskrit and many other Indian languages means one. Ekagra is a sanskrit word which means one-pointed, fixing one's attention on one point. Ekagra is an adjective. The noun form is ekagrata (একাগ্রতা).  It is also used as ekagra-chitta. This was a really unique name.

Our parents consulted some astrologers and they said that the name of the baby should start with kri (কৃ).  Gitika and I decided that we would give his nick name with that. We immediately thought of Krish which is shortened form of Krishna. But Gitika thought Krish was too common a name. So she modified it to Krishu (কৃশু in Assamese and कृशु in Hindi). Both us liked the name Krishu.

When I registered his name at the BBMP office, the official there told me that he knew the meaning of the name. He said it was one of the most unique names he has ever registered in his whole career at the office.

One of our friends blessed him that may he always be ekagra-chitta (single-minded and focused), and may his focus be on excellence, goodness and greatness.  Amen!

Thus baby-of-Gitika became Ekagra (Krishu).

Four days at Manipal Hospital

Ekagra was born in Manipal Hospital, Bangalore. Dr Jaya Bhatt was the gynecologist of Gitika. We were very happy with the services of the hospital. We were there for four days. I was with Gitika and our new baby all the time. My cousin Dabu and mother-in-law would come to the hospital in the morning and go back to our rented house in the evening. Dabu finished his semester exam and stayed back with us instead of going home immediately after his exam.

Our baby was still nameless. He was called baby-of-Gitika in all the records of Manipal hospital during these days.

Christmas Eve morning, 2007

We were blessed with a baby boy on December 24th, 2007.  As Gitika was taken to the operation theater (OT) in the wee hours, I was waiting outside with my cousin Dabu and my mother-in-law. It looked like the rush-hour in the maternity ward of Manipal Hospital. As we waited eagerly for the good news, many other babies were born. Doctors, nurses, other hospital staffs were busy running around. We didn't know if it was going to be a boy or a girl. I thought it would be a girl. Gitika thought it would be a boy. At around 8AM, some hospital staff announced: baby of Gitika. All three of us rushed. We saw the cute little baby. We were told it was a baby boy. He weighed 3.52 kg. He was wrapped in a green cloth. As I tried to hold him, he passed his first motion :-).  The hospital staff then took him away.