Ganesh Chaturthi

We decided to install the Lord for the second year in succession.
I was quite excited and was all ready to usher him in... shampooed and all!

This time, I had to multi-task a lot!

I was the CDO (Chief Delivery Officer)

...the CD*O (Chief Decorating Officer)

...the CPO (Chief Praying Officer)

...and pray I did!! Very fervently.

The Lord was happy :-)


And so were we :-)

Daughter's day

It was daughter's day yesterday.
I decided to really dress up for it...and carried my handbag as well. Ladies stuff, you know.

Me and daddy went out for a 3 hour adventure in the alleys of HN, Powai.
There was a quick stop at the Donut shop, to re-charge myself and get some saccharine into my system. Gave me some time to quickly think of a strategy to spend the evening optimally.



We then cycled our way to Crossword, where I was able to 'influence' daddy into buying a daughter's day gift for me. He had nowhere to run :-)

Had a good time!

A lazy evening with Daddy

It had been a long time that me and daddy had ventured out...without an agenda.
This weekend, we managed to steal some time and decided not to sit in front of the idiot box!

We took an old rag, cleaned the cycle and took off.

It helped that I was wearing my fairy wings...helps in the aerodynamics.

A day at daddy's office...

The director of L&T Financial Services, Sivaraman, was facing some major issues related to LTF pricing, and was not sure on how to derive ‘fair price’.
I (along with Dora the explorer) were summoned for the same.

Since the query was a bit complicated, I opened my workbook and had my quota of milk to get the creative juices flowing...

I did some quick calculations…

I had to ask a few pointed questions to folks like Sreedev, Viraj, and TSV.
They were a little confounded, but did give some logical explanations. I was able to use all this info and was able to find out the real issue…

All that was required was a simple extrapolation of some key figures, and there we had – the fair value staring right at our face….


Post that, since I had some time on me, I spent some time helping out Jennifer. She was looking for some fresh ideas on compensation structuring.

Had a working lunch and was able to bring some solace to her as well. You know, I have recently learnt addition and that helped.


Before I left office, I also spent some time colouring. It’s my way of de-stressing myself


I also enjoyed playing ‘statue’ with everybody.
Also learnt some jive moves from Lawrence.
The girls were nice, and they took real good care of me. Thanks ladies J

Let me assure you that whenever there are critical problems to be solved, I will come.
That’s a promise.

Ever felt like Pavlov's dog?

Since it's vacation time, I chose to spend some time on Wiki to understand human behaviour.

Read a bit on 'Classical conditioning' and found that Ivan Pavlov had done some interesting research on dogs, where he found that if the conditioned stimulus and unconditoned stimulus are repeatedly, eventually the two stimuli become associated and the organism begins to produce a behavioral response to the conditioned stimulus.

To cut the long story short, when you ring a bell, and if the dog associated the ringing of the bell with it getting food, it starts salivating.

Humans too, seem to be using this technique quite efficiently.
Just because of me performing well in school, Daddy took me out for a lot of ice-cream treats!

Got me thinking big-time!! Does it mean that I will have a need to perform, because I might start associating good performance with ice-creams?


But, what the heck! I got my choice of ice-creams!!

I am sure Pavlov's dogs were happy dogs.

I am!

Report card for Junior KG

It was one of the world's best kept secrets!
Mom n Dad had no idea on what to expect when they came in for the report card distribution for the pre-primary school kids.

Well, suffice it to say, I did well!

Out of the 4 categories, I won first prize for recitation and also for colouring. The medals were quite nice :-)

Guess the report card speaks for itself.

The medals were accompanied with certificates!

Overall, a very satisfying experience!

Guess the party begins...

Taking Math to a higher level

I must tell you that I was a little unsure about able to add numbers. But a systematic approach helped. I started adding numbers (please refer to my earlier post) using my fingers. That became easy after 4-5 practice tests:-) But daddy had different ideas in his alabaster head. He wanted me to count numbers higher than fingers on my hand. Here, I had to really struggle and rack my brains for ideas. The Eureka moment came one afternoon, when I was looking for options. I used my pencil to draw lines, which denoted numbers. Different lines for different numbers. Then it became easy to add. After a few practice sessions, I went through the final test!! Results were as usual, predictable!! 5/5 (100%) Daddy was happy, and he asked me if I wanted to top this test with the mother of all tests!! At this young age, I am a huge risk-taker! So, I said 'YES!!"

Daddy, again, was true to his word.

I got my ice-creams. Two of them!!

My first test paper

Daddy & I have been working on arithmetic these past few days...The focus has been on addition. We would ask each other complex questions on additions, using fingers to denote numbers... Then daddy made the mistake of challenging me to take a test! A tough one! I was a bit skeptical, since I had no previous experience, but decided to take the plunge. Have a look at the test! I am sure that you will agree that it was a tough one for an four and a half year old...

But I kept my calm and took it one question at a time. As you can observe, the results were good. I could see daddy's jaw dropping, which ensured my happiness quotient went up :-) Do you want to know why? Because we had a bet :-)

The bet was that if I answered all the questions correctly, I would get an ice-cream of my choice!!

Well, since my daddy is a gentleman, he kept his word, and I got an ice-cream of my choice (which is hardly a choice... Henry Ford used to say 'I can give you a car in any colour, as long as it's black'. I use a similar example to share my choice on ice-creams!)

For the intellectually challenged folks, I had a strawberry ice-cream. Duh!!

Well, the happiness did not end with one ice-cream. I pushed my luck, and asked him for one more with an expression I usually reserve for tough situations :-)

Needless to say, the idea worked & I got another one!! This time, I chose alphonso.

Nice :-) I am looking forward to more tests! Daddy has been recently certified on the MBTI. I may take that soon...

Happy Gudi Padwa

It was a very proud moment for me. Mumma gave me the entire responsibility of doing the Gudi Puja! I was well-prepared and confident because of my past experience in handling pujas for Diwali etc... but you could still see the pride on my face :-)

I did the procedure impeccably. The results were satisfactory.

Hope you guys had a great beginning to the year... Best wishes to all!!

Teaching Salman to fly

The other day, Salman Khan was a little hassled. That was because he had to do a stunt where he had to jump from a big height. Because of all the tension, he drank a lot of Sprite thinking that all this blabber about 'Dar ke aage hi jeet hain' will help. It didn't :-) Then, he came to me for advice. Rather than giving him gyan, I took him to R-City and gave him a demonstration. First, take care of all precautions. Check the rope, the carabiners etc, and it gives you an added sense of safety.

Once you are ready, do not think too much about it.

Just take a leap of faith.

Guess the session helped.

I think Salman did a good job in the ad.

Annual day

It was a big day. Parents stood outside the school in a serpentine queue, waiting for the gates to open. They rushed in to occupy the best seats, and watch their children perform.

From their seats, they got a glimpse of my school. Quite a sight!

I wore my special green dress, and put on some make-up...
The results were spectacular, to put it mildly :-)

I did a couple of pirouttes for my trigger happy daddy.

Just to keep him satisfied, I also did a headshake to show him the length of my hair... it had the necessary effect on him.

It was finally performance time.

I sang with the group.


And sang quite hard.

The impact on the audience was awesome! Took a bow, on behalf of my group.

That's it folks! Hope you enjoyed the commentary.

Trip to Hamleys

This sunday was exciting!
I had a lazy start to the day, since I knew that it was a hard day ahead :-)

We left for Phoenix Mills in the afternoon.
I was ready for the harsh sun, and wore my Dora sunglasses. Also decided to take Dora along, nicely covered so that I could leave her in the car while I went shopping.



We had lunch at the Noodle Bar, where I ate lots of noodles (what else!), and some delectable pink dessert!!

Then, it was time to go to Hamleys!! This is my second trip, but it still felt like the first time!
I finally homed on to a Dora guitar, which I have been carrying ever since.

3 hours of shopping, and I was done!
Caught a small power nap while on my way back....

Daddy and I played the guitar in the evening . He is really funny and plays amazing shadow guitar, like rock stars :-) you gotta see him.

Republic day celebrations

There was a slight chill in the air...
Me and my friends were excited because it was the Republic day, and we had a flag hoisting ceremony in our building!

For once, the flag unfurled without any knots, and it was a majestic sight!!



We sang 'Jana Gana Mana...' as a group song.
Did I tell you that I sang the same song solo in our shool assembly? It was awesome, and I am told that a few tears rolled down a few cheeks. Such was the impact of my rendition!

Spent quality time with Anika

We broke some bread and shared a drink...

Since it was a holiday, we made our mandatory trip to R-City, and for the first time, I got my strawberry ice-cream in a cone!! Yippe!!


Finally, freedom from the boring cup ice-cream!!

How about you? Did you achieve any such mile-stones?