What mysteries will Philae unlock?
This is the sort of feat that makes one gasp in awe and wonder. And this is the sort of bold exploration that all humankind is proud to be part of.
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
Friday, November 7, 2014
Thursday, November 6, 2014
Teek Hai, Yaar!
The Slate, NYT and WaPo have one thing in common: a liking for eyebrow-raising, attention-grabbing, ominous-sounding headlines like this
This is a typical Slate article. Scary title, designed to garner clicks from all parents with pre-K, and younger, kids. A person unfamiliar with Slate's tactics will feel some alarm. Even if, by some Herculean effort, this person manages not to click on the link and find this article, just the tenor of those words strikes a cord somewhere deep within and manages to lead to a good amount of pessimism about the country's future, depression about the sad state of things, bleakness about how in the world one is supposed to get quality care for one's kids and a longing for a simpler life. Or the person clicks the link and reads the article. To find what?
The standard sentence about how native wisdom from some country (this time, it's Russia) is trumping the supposedly scientific pre-K education that is currently prevalent in the US.... it's-something-they-have-always-known-and-done-in-(whatever country)-and-we-ignoramuses-in-the US-are-just-now-finding-out-about-it kind of line. Then what is this great wisdom that parents have been depriving their kids of? See, you're supposed to talk to your kids! Not just baby-talk, but really, really talk, connect with them even! And every play must be purposeful! No sense in purposeless play! What is play after all if it doesn't have some deep hidden message inside it, just waiting to be discovered and devoured by the voracious preK subconscious mind?
Then, obligatory lines by some expert in some Ivy League university about how whatever the article is claiming is needed is just quite so difficult, needs retraining of an entire generation of (whatever... pre-K teachers in this case) across the whole continent and yet, is just urgent that it needs to be done right away for the immediate improvement of our kids and future society.
And final shocking statements demonstrating extreme cases of shocking ignorance in knowledge/diligence/skills/ intelligence/ playacting/ tree-climbing/fill in whatever you want. Children know their numbers but don't know what it means! Children can dig, but they can't stack! Children can spit but they can't dribble! Yaaarrggh! End of the world and the current generation! Whatever will they do?
(Slate homepage, November 6th 2014, noon)
This is a typical Slate article. Scary title, designed to garner clicks from all parents with pre-K, and younger, kids. A person unfamiliar with Slate's tactics will feel some alarm. Even if, by some Herculean effort, this person manages not to click on the link and find this article, just the tenor of those words strikes a cord somewhere deep within and manages to lead to a good amount of pessimism about the country's future, depression about the sad state of things, bleakness about how in the world one is supposed to get quality care for one's kids and a longing for a simpler life. Or the person clicks the link and reads the article. To find what?
The standard sentence about how native wisdom from some country (this time, it's Russia) is trumping the supposedly scientific pre-K education that is currently prevalent in the US.... it's-something-they-have-always-known-and-done-in-(whatever country)-and-we-ignoramuses-in-the US-are-just-now-finding-out-about-it kind of line. Then what is this great wisdom that parents have been depriving their kids of? See, you're supposed to talk to your kids! Not just baby-talk, but really, really talk, connect with them even! And every play must be purposeful! No sense in purposeless play! What is play after all if it doesn't have some deep hidden message inside it, just waiting to be discovered and devoured by the voracious preK subconscious mind?
Then, obligatory lines by some expert in some Ivy League university about how whatever the article is claiming is needed is just quite so difficult, needs retraining of an entire generation of (whatever... pre-K teachers in this case) across the whole continent and yet, is just urgent that it needs to be done right away for the immediate improvement of our kids and future society.
And final shocking statements demonstrating extreme cases of shocking ignorance in knowledge/diligence/skills/ intelligence/ playacting/ tree-climbing/fill in whatever you want. Children know their numbers but don't know what it means! Children can dig, but they can't stack! Children can spit but they can't dribble! Yaaarrggh! End of the world and the current generation! Whatever will they do?
I want to write this down so I will remember not to go down that rabbit hole (again): chillax, yaar! Seriously, your kid doesn't need purposeful play. He (and she) doesn't even need particularly any purpose. Walk him around and he'll find plenty of things to ask you about, to notice (and no, you don't have to take special pains to get him to notice accidentally-on-purpose-placed educational, purposeful articles) and to comment on. And just the conversation, with you being an involved and respectful participant, is plenty good to give him a head-start on anything he wants to do.
And I'm getting to be a firm believer in the sentiment that the less you worry about your kids, the better off they will be.
So ditch your native-Russian wisdom (okay, since when did we start looking to Russia for wisdom on child-rearing?) and don your native-(whatever country you belong to) common-sense.
Friday, October 31, 2014
The fall of the mighty: how my mental discipline fails me in my home country.
My life in the US is fairly rigid. I have a routine which I follow fairly strictly: wake up at a certain time, do certain things in a certain order, get to work at a particular time, eat mostly salads for lunch, supervise very strictly what my kids eat (as much as I can anyway. They let them eat all sorts of junk at daycare and I don't do anything about that). You get the picture. I exert my discipline as much as possible on all steps in my life. I consciously step away from the dessert aisle (and it's very difficult for anyone with a sweet tooth); while cooking, I use organic stuff, I shun processed foods, and although the kids get their fried stuff in the form of puris twice or thrice a week, neither my husband or I touch the stuff. We don't make extravagant purchases; indeed, after shelling out for day care, healthcare, the house, utilities and the like, we don't have much money to splurge either. We spend money on clothes every 6 months or so but are fairly strict in economizing the rest of the year. But in turn, we are fairly healthy, in good shape, have the resources to go camping and sight-seeing on the weekends and we have money saved up for emergencies. It's a fairly frugal, conservative lifestyle... very disciplined.
My life in India is diametrically different. First of all, my parents' house is bang in the middle of a commercial section. One step out of the house and we are met with endless clothes shops and eating joints. It's become a routine for my kids to eat ice-cream or cakes or both nearly every day; I get a long, 4-course meal every 6 or so hours, with multiple fried papads or vadams; if I crave any ghee-stuffed monstrosity, it's just a hop away from wherever I am; and worst of all, there's a festival going on nearly every week for which my mom and grand mom and aunts make a hundred different sweets and fried things. Needless to say, my form has gone from being fairly slim to quite plump. None of my clothes from the US fit me anymore, so of course, I go shopping. And of course, I can't stop- the variety, the designs, the colors, the range of prices- there's nothing to beat India when it comes to clothes. I keep excusing my reckless abandon of all my precious mental discipline with the line that I'll be going back to the US soon. But it's been 3 months! And I still don't have my visa in hand! And I have no idea when I'll get it. So unless I start my exercising and portion-control right now, I'm going to resemble nothing less than the rosagollas and gulab jamuns that I keep popping into my mouth.
Life in India is also a lot friendlier. I talk endlessly here- and not just to the same people. The kids and I have made friends with the neighborhood shopkeepers, some other kids at the park we go to every day, some random ladies who come to visit the astrologer next door, and most of all, with the various cousins. Of course we have friends in the US and we do talk to people, but there, the chances of striking a conversation with some person you have just met are very slim.
Life in the US is going to be terribly flat when we get back.
My life in India is diametrically different. First of all, my parents' house is bang in the middle of a commercial section. One step out of the house and we are met with endless clothes shops and eating joints. It's become a routine for my kids to eat ice-cream or cakes or both nearly every day; I get a long, 4-course meal every 6 or so hours, with multiple fried papads or vadams; if I crave any ghee-stuffed monstrosity, it's just a hop away from wherever I am; and worst of all, there's a festival going on nearly every week for which my mom and grand mom and aunts make a hundred different sweets and fried things. Needless to say, my form has gone from being fairly slim to quite plump. None of my clothes from the US fit me anymore, so of course, I go shopping. And of course, I can't stop- the variety, the designs, the colors, the range of prices- there's nothing to beat India when it comes to clothes. I keep excusing my reckless abandon of all my precious mental discipline with the line that I'll be going back to the US soon. But it's been 3 months! And I still don't have my visa in hand! And I have no idea when I'll get it. So unless I start my exercising and portion-control right now, I'm going to resemble nothing less than the rosagollas and gulab jamuns that I keep popping into my mouth.
Life in India is also a lot friendlier. I talk endlessly here- and not just to the same people. The kids and I have made friends with the neighborhood shopkeepers, some other kids at the park we go to every day, some random ladies who come to visit the astrologer next door, and most of all, with the various cousins. Of course we have friends in the US and we do talk to people, but there, the chances of striking a conversation with some person you have just met are very slim.
Life in the US is going to be terribly flat when we get back.
Monday, October 27, 2014
A wise book
My dad had told me about Dorothy Sayers and the Peter Wimsey series ages ago. I had even checked out the first book "Whose Body?" from the library, but never got around to finishing it somehow. This time, I skipped straight to "Strong Poison", where Peter meets Harriet and falls in love (a bit quickly, but still) and then to "Gaudy Night".
I'm still reeling from the effects of "Gaudy Night". I read it online, never a good strategy if one finds a book good enough to lose oneself in, so I must, absolutely must get the actual solid text in my hands and read it so well the next times that I have the book memorized. Have I ever said this of any other book? Never. This book is that good. There is wisdom in it.
More on it when I can expound in better detail.
I'm still reeling from the effects of "Gaudy Night". I read it online, never a good strategy if one finds a book good enough to lose oneself in, so I must, absolutely must get the actual solid text in my hands and read it so well the next times that I have the book memorized. Have I ever said this of any other book? Never. This book is that good. There is wisdom in it.
More on it when I can expound in better detail.
Neither here nor there
3 months ago, I would have thought that a 3 month-long holiday in India was the best thing to wish for. Well, after 3 enforced months in India, I can say with great firmness that it isn't all that's cracked up to be. Hear me well, you expat desis.
Short story as to why I'm still here in the desh: visa issues. Specifically, that beast called "administrative processing". Never mind what that is if you don't know it. It's a thing most boring and completely insane.
So yaay, here we are, the kids and I, in the lap of the motherland, experiencing life as it truly is in India, and not through a 2- or 3- week frenetic holiday window. It's been good and bad. It's the first time I have spent Diwali or Dussera at home in 10 years. It's the first time the kids have got to experience fireworks. It's nice to see the kids become close friends with their cousins. But, these moments are like raisins in a piece of raisin bread, some moments of sweetness in an otherwise boring and flat landscape.
The biggest hurdle: the man's back in the US. Let me tell you, those of you patient chaps still with me, one of the biggest and most unexpected results of sudden quasi-single parenthood: obnoxious kids. Kids who are normally fairly well-behaved start acting out like crazy. I put this down to the fact that they miss the other parent quite desperately, they are floundering even though there're plenty of relatives around, and they miss the stability the other parent brings. For my 4 year old son, if mom's in a bitchy mood, there's always dad to turn to. Now, even though he has Ajji, Thatha or Avva to turn to, it just isn't the same. So there are tantrums, general whininess, utter unreasonableness.... you get the picture. What in the world do divorced parents do, I wonder? It must be terribly difficult. At least I have the consolation that my husband will come and visit next week and I can hand over one of the kids to him.
Another great realization, or rather, a confirmation of what I've known for a while: home may be where the heart is, but home is also definitely where the work is. Mooching around here, I realize there's nothing particularly important that I need to do, there's nowhere that I particularly need to be and it's a depressing thought. But yet, it isn't just work for work's sake that I miss. It's my work, my research and my questions. I miss pottering around at my work bench, I miss pipetting things and I miss discussing stuff with my lab chaps. At my parents' place, I do no work. At my in-law's place, I don't get time to breathe, let alone sit. Neither state is particularly joy-inducing.
Short story as to why I'm still here in the desh: visa issues. Specifically, that beast called "administrative processing". Never mind what that is if you don't know it. It's a thing most boring and completely insane.
So yaay, here we are, the kids and I, in the lap of the motherland, experiencing life as it truly is in India, and not through a 2- or 3- week frenetic holiday window. It's been good and bad. It's the first time I have spent Diwali or Dussera at home in 10 years. It's the first time the kids have got to experience fireworks. It's nice to see the kids become close friends with their cousins. But, these moments are like raisins in a piece of raisin bread, some moments of sweetness in an otherwise boring and flat landscape.
The biggest hurdle: the man's back in the US. Let me tell you, those of you patient chaps still with me, one of the biggest and most unexpected results of sudden quasi-single parenthood: obnoxious kids. Kids who are normally fairly well-behaved start acting out like crazy. I put this down to the fact that they miss the other parent quite desperately, they are floundering even though there're plenty of relatives around, and they miss the stability the other parent brings. For my 4 year old son, if mom's in a bitchy mood, there's always dad to turn to. Now, even though he has Ajji, Thatha or Avva to turn to, it just isn't the same. So there are tantrums, general whininess, utter unreasonableness.... you get the picture. What in the world do divorced parents do, I wonder? It must be terribly difficult. At least I have the consolation that my husband will come and visit next week and I can hand over one of the kids to him.
Another great realization, or rather, a confirmation of what I've known for a while: home may be where the heart is, but home is also definitely where the work is. Mooching around here, I realize there's nothing particularly important that I need to do, there's nowhere that I particularly need to be and it's a depressing thought. But yet, it isn't just work for work's sake that I miss. It's my work, my research and my questions. I miss pottering around at my work bench, I miss pipetting things and I miss discussing stuff with my lab chaps. At my parents' place, I do no work. At my in-law's place, I don't get time to breathe, let alone sit. Neither state is particularly joy-inducing.
Saturday, September 13, 2014
Birding in Lalbagh
One fine morning during our trip to India in August, Ram, Durgoose and I went to Lalbagh Botanical Gardens in Bangalore. Long ago, my cousins and I used to be taken to Lalbagh, but it's been decades since I've visited the place. It is just so huge that it's really difficult for anyone, let alone some cranky five year olds, to spend too much time there without getting utterly exhausted. Places in the US might be larger, but you can drive through such parks. In Lalbagh, you enter through one of four gates at the periphery of a 240-acre garden and then walk through its various sections.
As you enter through the gates, you will be greeted by some pretty spectacular gladioli and the sight of a lot of people walking through the gardens. Early in the morning, Lalbagh is free to walk through. After about 10:30am, when the flower show opens, is when the ticket stalls open.
One of the first marvels of Lalbagh is the Lalbagh hill, a 3000 million year old formation which is, if I recall the sign correctly, supposed to be some kind of pseudo-gneiss (whatever that is). On top of this small hill, Kempegowda, the founder of modern Bangalore, installed a post some time in the 1500's to mark one of the four corners of his new city. Bangalore has grown so much since then that the post is now in the middle of the city.
One of the first birds we encountered was the common myna. A member of the starling family, it is as common a sight in urban India as starlings are in the USA.
From the summit, on the opposite side from which you climb the hill, you can see a water body choking with water hydrangea. This is a perfect hiding place for birds like the purple moorhen. Nearby gulmohar trees and bamboos sway gently in the breeze.
A family of parakeets madly cackle away. Can you tell where they are?
The lake at Lalbagh is where inexperienced birdwatchers like me feel like we have really hit pay dirt. So many birds, each one more graceful than the next!
Here are cormorants (which, by the way, I could recognize because we had seen them all the way back in Galveston, TX!), pelicans, brahminy kites and painted storks!
Here are some pictures of the beautiful painted stork. See that little dash of pink right by the tail? I think that's why it's called "painted".
Guess what this stork is doing by lifting its wing like that? It's blocking the sunlight and its reflection so that it can see its fish better!
As you enter through the gates, you will be greeted by some pretty spectacular gladioli and the sight of a lot of people walking through the gardens. Early in the morning, Lalbagh is free to walk through. After about 10:30am, when the flower show opens, is when the ticket stalls open.One of the first marvels of Lalbagh is the Lalbagh hill, a 3000 million year old formation which is, if I recall the sign correctly, supposed to be some kind of pseudo-gneiss (whatever that is). On top of this small hill, Kempegowda, the founder of modern Bangalore, installed a post some time in the 1500's to mark one of the four corners of his new city. Bangalore has grown so much since then that the post is now in the middle of the city.
One of the first birds we encountered was the common myna. A member of the starling family, it is as common a sight in urban India as starlings are in the USA.
From the summit, on the opposite side from which you climb the hill, you can see a water body choking with water hydrangea. This is a perfect hiding place for birds like the purple moorhen. Nearby gulmohar trees and bamboos sway gently in the breeze.
 |
| Is there another tree as graceful as the gulmohar? |
A family of parakeets madly cackle away. Can you tell where they are?
The lake at Lalbagh is where inexperienced birdwatchers like me feel like we have really hit pay dirt. So many birds, each one more graceful than the next!
Here are cormorants (which, by the way, I could recognize because we had seen them all the way back in Galveston, TX!), pelicans, brahminy kites and painted storks!
 |
| Pelicans and cormorants fishing together |
 |
| Cormorants sunbathing and swimming |
 |
| Painted stork, cormorants and purple moorhen |
 |
| Purple moorhen |
Guess what this stork is doing by lifting its wing like that? It's blocking the sunlight and its reflection so that it can see its fish better!
Let me end this post by quickly summarizing the birds we saw that morning:
Common myna
Golden eagle
Purple moorhens
Jungle myna
Common crow
Jungle crow
Parakeets
Brahminy kite
Pelicans
Cormorants
Wild ducks
Painted storks
Owlets
Lalbagh is massive. We were only able to see a fraction of it. The terrains we covered (in about 2 hours) were:
Hills and rocks
Vegetation-covered ponds
Thickets
Big shady groves with large canopies
Lake and surrounding areas
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