Watching a kid play

My son of one and a half years went to the park today evening , with his babysitter as per his normal routine and I followed a little later, curious to see how he plays when am not around.

The so-often heard " He is different when you are not there" was proven right ... the boy who simply clings to me and refuses to mingle looked quite independent - he went about the motions , he knew what he wanted to play and she only had to follow. He went to the slide and then to the see-saw and then went back to the pram to get his sand toys. Then he sat on the sand and started filling and pouring to and from random bowls and boxes ( at this point I cringed at the sight of dirty hands, dirty legs and soiled clothes and was on the verge of pulling him away but didnot, 'coz thats the most enjoyable part for him ) and all the while I kept thinking about what was going on in his head. Not much I would like to assume, as it is beyond me to comprehend what the kid thinks, most of the time !

The most amazing thing about kids' play is the fact that they take playing so seriously, as though its a task demanding their complete attention, they have their heart and soul in it, they are in it completely and they have total fun. Maybe thats what real fun is all about ... loving what one does and giving one's hundred percent.
And why the picture of a pair of shoes ..you ask ? Just like that ..thats his first pair and I simply love it !! isn't it too cute ? :)

After a short break ...

Noticed some blogs I have been following have not been updated recently ...on the contrary, they are taking long breaks. So what are these people upto ...
meetpreeth.blogspot.com
the-eternal-cynic.blogspot.com
aashraya.blogspot.com - hey Crystal Blur, you may never get to read this post, but still ..am so glad you are back to writing.
come on guys, put on your thinking hat, let the creative juices flow and lets see some good stuff to read ! you don't have to post a man-booker winning entry ( check out the previous post for my opinion on booker winners ) everytime you logon to blogger, lets keep things simple and say ...for example , as mundane as ' Weather is not good today'. Know you are all busy with lives, but this is also a part of your life.

If you forget to write on your blog for a long time, you feel like you are forgetting an aspect of your personality, atleast I do.

'White Tiger' and '3 Mistakes ...'

My friend called my last post "laziness in public ..." ! Thanks buddy, I needed it, as always feedback matters :) Am hoping to come up with some meaningful post this time ...

Finished reading 2 books by Indian authors recently - 'The White Tiger' by Aravind Adiga,which gained a lot of popularity after it won the Man Booker prize and 'Three mistakes of my life' by Chetan Bhagat.

Talking of ' The White Tiger' , it left me with an empty feeling as I came to the last page ... what was the whole point of the book really ?

If Aravind Adiga's intention was to bring out the 'real India' ,with hundreds of villages in Darkness, yes ... that was a job well done. But if it was to evoke any sympathy, care or feeling for the downtrodden ...the book didnot succeed there, it only served as FYI, 'for your information'. The apathy was so overdone that it was suffocating, I wanted to get away, move on quickly to some brighter part of the story. There wasn't any though ... at one point when the main character said " the story gets darker from here" , I wondered how much more !. The whole premise of some self-styled entrepreneur writing to the Chinese Prime Minister and warning him about India was so far-fetched Mr. Adiga - for one who observes and writes about reality in minute detail, you donot seem to have got too many ideas in imagining a narrative situation. Anyway ... the difference lies here - Adiga won the Booker, this review will not. So there must be something good in that book am unable to figure.

Coming to 'Three Mistakes of my life' - not a WOW inducing book, but still a good read. It had the masala for a page-turner - friendship, passion, adventure, politics, cricket and love. It takes a small story and weaves it well with real events like 9/11, Godhra train burning incident, Gujarat earthquake ... the book is so Indian that I could almost hear the cheers of the crowd when India won the test match against Australia , could smell the Gujarati savouries, could feel the restlessness of its characters. But at places , the characters sounded too intellectual for their educational qualification - so was it 12th pass Businessman Govind or IIM-alumni Chetan Bhagat speaking?

Will leave you to ponder. Until I read another book , so long ...