These days lots of reality shows come on television on music.... there are singing shows dancing shows and what not on all family channels.... some even are for small children... and gosh... how beautiful these small kids dance or sing... looking at them i silently wish even my children could go there... dance.. sing... and make us proud... if theres one thing that i regret in life is that i cant sing or dance or play a musical instrument... 

mom realised dancing and singing wasn’t for me so she put me in a class to learn harmonium... that time and even now i always wanted to learn to play guitar... i had told mom about it but she wanted to me learn either harmonium or table, both of which i hated... i made so many excuses and refrained from learning either of them.... and later on even mom had to resign from making me learn one of them...
i always try to encourage my children to learn something... something of their choice... i now strongly believe to let children learn what they want to and not what we want them to learn... Ria first went to singing, then bharatnatyam, then kathak... she didn’t like either of them... finally she has now settled in what u can say.... ‘Bollywood dancing’... she likes it and goes to learn it with much enthusiasm...

so piece of advice.... allow ur child to learn what they are interested in and not what u are interested in.... don’t make them have the feeling of regret like i do now have....
still its never too late to learn... planning to learn playing guitar... hopefully i do learn what i always wanted too....

my take on my social acitivites

It was probably 8 yrs ago that i realised that i wanted to help out people... it wasn’t a God sent signal or a spark but over a period of time i realised that there was lot of things that i could probably do to help out others... when i started putting my thoughts into action i realised that it made me feel better... and so the activities went on and on making me feel better and better...
Few days ago around 2 3 ppl advised me that i need to cut down on all these social activities... on being asked for a reason they were like “y waste important time in such things... anyway ppl hardly value free things... u can use that time for something better...”
It got me thinking since it wasn’t a single person telling me that but almost 3 of them... i was like reasoning between 1) y i should continue and 2 ) y i shouldn’t ???.... I first thought about the people i help out... I try to improve someones life in whatever small way i can... Even though it is a ‘small way’ for me i realise that it probably is ‘something big’ for the needy. When i turn back and recollect all the responses from the ppl whom i have helped i realised that i probably stimulated a sense of well being... a sense of hope.... a sense of positiveness in them... and their thanking me or their appreciating my work or the small smile i could install on their faces probably brought happiness in me...
So maybe if u think deep down i might not be doing all these social activities for others but for myself... its what probably makes me happy... the smile on ur face brings a smile on my face too...

Raising Kids with Problems..

Raising children needs patience… atleast with naughty kids as of ours surely needs lots of patience… tough job but then everyone does it… yesterday had a patient in OPD… 9 yr boy with history of some neurological surgery done 4 yrs ago… that neurological surgery had left a permanent damage on his brain… he had become sort of an hyperactive child… wouldn’t sit in one place for one second… always doing some masti of sorts… tried to pull on some wires and machines of my instruments… tried taking some things and throwing here and there… just wouldn’t listen… after a couple of minutes even I got irritated by his behavior.. but his parents tried to be calm and apologetically tried to handle things… that’s when I realized how tough it would be for the kids parents to take care of the child… the patience required would have been amazing… on asking the father said that his mother had to resign from work as one of them had to stay back with him… no crèche would take such a child… the father did handle him well but somewhere I found a bit of irritation creeping on him too… for his sake they had given away the thought of having a second child, as they knew he would require their utmost attention for the rest of their lives… as they left I couldn’t help but pity on the condition this family found itself into… just wished that the parents don’t run out of patience anytime in future…

Child Begging

Was returning from work yesterday when my car came to a halt at a traffic signal…. Was engrossed in a nice song when suddenly someone knocked at the window.. a girl probably of age around 10 yrs with a smaller kid of around 1 – 1 ½ yr in her arms stood there… she started asking for money saying she was hungry and so on… I never give money to such people who come with babies in their arms bcause I feel that this encourages them more to trouble the small kid into crying so as to gain our sympathies… I asked her to go away… but that got me into thinking… the signal turned green and I moved on, but I tried to think as to how can this ever be stopped… last week it was in papers that some kid was kidnapped and asked to beg near Bombay hospital… there had to be some way to stop this… even if the men who force these kids into begging are arrested they come out again and start same thing all over… I then realized that there was one harsh way to end this… make child begging a crime…!!! I know this may sound weird… or such law may be into existence already of which I am unaware of… but after making such a law start arresting such kids and start putting them into remand / correctional homes… this is really harsh on them but to achieve something big this can be undertaken…. Once everyone comes to know that begging by children is a crime and can attract punishment then no one would then force or even ask these kids to beg… children wont be kidnapped for this purpose …over a period we may find no children begging anywhere… matter to think over?????????

Being 'Daddy' :-)

Just remembered a funny incident today… few mths ago some of Ria’s frnds had come home to play with her… Ria calls me Daddy or Dadda….n I later realized tht all her frnds addressed their father as Baba or by some other similar nomenclature… these kids were at home for almost 3 4 hrs…. throughout their play there were times when Ria would have called me up for something… even whn they asked Swapna for something she just told her “go n ask daddy”… after some time I decided to join them for some fun… after a few minutes one of her friends wanted something frm me… she came up to me n said “ae daddy I want tht toy… will u pass on the toy…” one other kid was “ae daddy pl put on the cartoons”… later on almost all these kids started addressing me as Daddy… amused I realized these kids thought tht this man is to be addressed by the name “Daddy”… till the time they were at home I was addressed as Daddy by all the kids… we were all very amused… I told Swapna if their parents were to listen to this m sure they would be damn embarrassed… then the time came for me to drop them… one of the kids announced “chalo everyone… Daddys gonna drop us all at home…” smiling I packed them all in the car n decided to treat them on the way…. We went to an ice cream shop…. And as everyone went in it was my time to get embarrassed as all kids stated shouting “Daddy I want chocolate” “daddy I want strawberry” n so on… everyone present there gave me weird n stunned look as almost all kids had made their ‘Daddy’ tht day… I just shrugged paid d bill n dropped them all 

A Optimistic guy slowly turning Pessimistic 

Today I feel the need to worry about the future of my country, my India… daily I pick the newspaper or switch on the news n 90% of the news is negative news… scams, murders, rapes, deaths, deceits, droughts etc etc… one literally has to search for some positive news… few years back it wasn’t so…. I mean not atleast to this extent…. The pessimism has creeped in the minds of the general man… a building collapses – 100’s die – someone gets murdered – some scams get unearthed – n what comes to our mind first??? Not sympathy for the victim but “kuch nahi hoga… the accused or rather those who are involved will get scot free in some days – the investigators will ‘get rich’ n the people will forget”!!!! “ya n some may ‘oppose’ or ‘look like to’ stand for the victim but then either their ‘personal agenda’ gets fulfilled or they also ‘get rich’ n shut up”!!!! This is now the standard protocol for any ‘event’!!!! Why I worry??? I worry for what if I or my near dear ones are the ‘victim’ tomorrow??? What will happen then??? Will it just be another ‘event’ then??? An event that the media might rake up for increasing their trp’s??? An event that the ruling party try to show that it is because of opposition party??? An event that the opposition party will use to dethrone the ruling party??? An event that the lawmakers n others involved in the process of providing justice might use to get rich??? Such a shame….!!!

Business comes first

Summer comes with holidays… vacation time… funtime for kids… during summer time we usually have less patients at our hospital; so we try to make the most of it…. weekend tours are almost always there… this particular weekend we had gone to our in-laws place at dadar… time spent at in-laws place was always leisure time, with waking up at around 9 n then having wholesome breakfast lazing around… afternoons were at times dangerous cos that was usually the time whn wifey would want to go and shop… it was always ‘I wanna window shop only… I already have everything… so don’t worry m not gonna spend anything’ at the start; which would usually end with ‘good I came… I always wanted to buy tht particular dress’ with around 3-4 bags in the hand…. One such afternoon we decided to go ‘window shopping’ at dadar… the kids were busy playing downstairs n wernt too much interested in shopping… ofcourse summers the time for kids to play throughout the day without having to listen to parents… We reached Dadar n were looking around when I noticed a kid, around 10-12 yrs old selling certain items on the road. He was sitting on the footpath with his goods spread out on a cloth in front of him… while dear wifey was window shopping I went near him n asked him “kitne ka hai”… with a smile he replied “sir bahot accha rumal hai… 20rs packet”… he had around 10 packets with him… I asked him “school ko chutti hogi na??? toh khelne nahi gaya”…. To which his initial excitement reduced n replied “sir lena hai kya… timepass mat karo”… little taken aback by his strong reply I shook my head n said “nahi re… just puch raha tha”… he replied “school band… isliye yaha mai baiththa hun aur baba in dino mai barf-gole ka gaadi lagate hai”… my heart was overwhelmed with his innocent reply… I felt sad while all kids play n make the most of it of the summer holidays this kid has to sit here n help out his dad… suddenly I had an idea… I asked him “agar jyada packet liya toh kuch kam karega???” his eyes lit up with excitement “2 liya toh 2 rupay kam dena”…. I removed my wallet n said “thik hai chal... ye 180 rupees le aur mujhe sab packet dede…” the kid stared at me for sometime…. “sab??” he hurriedly recovered from his initial shock n for the fear that I may change my mind put all packets in a plastic bag n gave them to me…. I gave him the money n said “jaa ab sab bech diya na…. ab ghar jaake khel”…. he took the money n carefully put them in his pocket n smiled at me n ran away….. I felt nice at heart tht atleast he would get to enjoy atleast this afternoon…. I went near my wifey n handed her the packet…. She was like “have u gone crazy buying so many hankies???” I then narrated the whole incident to her… it much have taken around 5 minutes to do tht… wifey dear smiled n said “thts so sweet of u dearest hubby…. But would u like to turn around n take a look”…. As I turned around, my heart which was still running hard at the thoughts of the kid getting to enjoy his afternoon suddenly skipped a beat at what I saw… the kid was again sitting there with another set of packets of hankies spread in front of him…!!!!! He just looked at me… smiled…. N gave me a thumbsup sign….. 