Selfie by Shweta Bachchan

Russian daredevil Kirill Oreshkin taking a selfie atop a hi rise building

I have conveniently dropped the Nanda at the end to make it more appealing. Yes it is Sr Bachchan’s daughter writing about Selfie. Not surprisingly very eloquent article; she hails from writers family, her father and grand father. Found it very interesting to note that she is totally against the selfies while she is surrounded by huge personalities.

Selfie was immortalized by Ellen DeGeneres of course promoting the phone she held at Oscars. The picture itself was beautiful with all the Hollywood stars posing triumphantly for the shot, then it went viral on Twitter.

I am not so much against the selfies, but I tend to agree with Shweta on the self indulgence of we humans. Although selfie can be used as medium to capture everybody in the group, but like she says, why do it, if there several other tourists around you who would be glad to help you out. Builds human interaction and social acquaintance.

She also vents about the children taking selfies with duck face. Sure she being a mother herself would be annoyed by that, but it is still cute as long they are limited to children. Unfortunately lots of adults have never grown out of their childhood and progress into belfies.

Selfies has taken a sinister turn, which she is not addressing, the deaths related to Selfies is overwhelming. The picture posted above is that of a Russian daredevil Kirill Oreshkin has earned a name as Russian Spiderman for his selfies atop a hi-rise buildings. Call it daredevil or dumb move, one mis-step could cause his death. Other daredevils have not been so lucky who have succumbed to death, pricenomics lists such deaths in this article.

Mumbai police has posted a sign for Selfie daredevils,

Don’t make ‘taking a selfie‘ mean ‘taking your own life‘.

scores of people are dead taking a selfie near Marine Drive or Bandra seaface. Statistics have shown that India had almost 60 percent of deaths of all selfies.

Finally Shweta ends her blog with a satirical note, where she contacted her doctor for sunburns over the phone, to which her doctor responded, “Send a Selfie”, you can read her entire article here.

Anthony Bourdain: Pain Unknown

All his life he showed us the finest dining places across the world and some remotest of places and proved that it is not necessary to be wealthy to enjoy life and have fun. He did visit the Malaysian remote island (could be wrong), for the second time; this time being more popular TV host and explaining them that he had then loved their culture, where people cooked and drank all night till they dropped dead; metaphorically, a simple living and sharing the food amongst the entire village. More so than food, he showed the beauty of connecting with people across the world at a personal level.

With his exhaustive traveling and carefree living, he once said “With so many tattoos, one more I can take”, he took every challenge that was thrown at him, though scared at times, he was real on camera as he was in his real life.

He made his life an envy of all, dining in the most exotic places, maneuvering yachts, blending with various culture around the world and families alike or was it an illusion, we will never know.

Tony’s death came days after another celebrity ended her life tragically; Kate Spade, what drove these greats to this extreme, world would never know. Every budding chef, journalists many other common person in different professions idealized his life, wanted to be Tony, except himself.

Lastly I would leave with a thought that his high point in life (sorry for speaking on his behalf) would be, he introducing the President Barack Obama a good cheap eat in Hanoi, Vietnam over a bottle of beer!, but Barack being another great he has tweeted his best moment with Tony already.

I would like to quote Neil Degrasse Tyson, “Life is precious, here were are investing in search for life on Mars, wherever we find it, we need to cherish and nurture it”.

The man who lived so much, the idea of he not being there anymore is surreal.

Ode! Anthony Bourdain!

KRSNA

KRSNA is a mythological story told by himself for children in a very simple language.

Excerpt

What Next…

Well it’s been five thousand years and I am meeting with Lord to land on earth. We feel like we left it for you humans to handle it on your own without we meddling too much, but we are noticing the state this earth has been brought to.

The constant argument here is who will lead the effort to go down there and take care of the business. Every time; all of these thirty three million us, none wants to come down there. Everybody has gotten very comfortable up here, we look down and see the technological progress you guys have made, frankly lots of devas fear of being outdated. I remember few decades back, if I am not mistaken Narad went to Varanasi; the university of Hindu literature. He even met with you people and explained that he was Narad, Lord Brahma himself had sent him down there to address your concerns. He was heckled so bad, that we couldn’t help but laugh at his plight.

Narad went to one beggar who had his legs crippled and twisted from knee down, beard, hair and body starving for nutrition, clothes falling apart rotting on their own and said, “I see you in distress, is there anything you need from Lord?”

The man looks at him like Narad was some kind of an alien and goes, “Who are you?”

“Oh! I am Narad, the messenger of Lord himself”, explicitly displaying his signature Veena and Jasmine flowers tied around his head and arms.

“Well you seem like a nice guy, what’s up that hairdo”, he scooted over a little and continued, “come sit here, this is a popular spot, every temple visitor passses from here, you can collect a lot of money here, you seem like a nice guy, what brought you to this state”, he spread another rotten gunny bag next to him and patted to dust off.

“No! I am not here to beg!”, Narad looked up into the sky, frankly we were laughing out loud, this embarrassed him and continued to the beggar, “I am sent by god to check with your concerns”, frankly he was losing his cool.

“Alright then, give me hundred rupees”, said the beggar, “you make my day today”.

“No I can’t pay money, I don’t have, I can carry your concerns…”

“Alright beat it now, you are obstructing my busy hours here, go check concerns of other people out there and take them to your lord”, he threw an air quotes around Lord.

Narad, stepped away from the man and got moving, beggar yelled back, “Hey watch out godman, a bus will run you over, nobody has time for your Lord concerns out here, take it somewhere else”.

Narad turned to look around and a cyclist knocked his Veena and broke it, he just yelled back “Sorry” and kept riding his bike. Some other person picked up his broken Veena and handed it to him, “Are you looking for the drama theatre?, you look lost, it’s right there, you see that cobbler sitting down there, turnaround you can’t miss it”.

Narad frustrated, “No, I am not…”, before he could complete the man had taken off, was hanging on to a moving bus. The wooden slippers were also knocked off, he decided to meet the cobbler to repair. Limping on one leg with broken Veena he approached the cobbler.

“My good friend, can you fix these sandals for me?”

Cobbler busy sewing a leather sandal adjusted his broken glasses and looked at Narad, “What are these, you don’t wear these on streets”, he continued with his work, irritated.

“No! This is all I have worn all the time, please fix them for me”, pleaded Narad, his feet was burning in the hot sun, his other wooden sandal had stuck in the melting tar and had no clue how to get it off. Cobbler wanting to take a break, dropped his sewing and grabbed the water jug and gulped the water. Wiping his mouth turned to Narad and said, “I can’t fix these sir, leave them here, walk into the theater and when you return maybe I will see if I can fix them”.

“I am not going to a theater!!! I just need these fixed, I need to go home”, said Narad visibly irritated by people asking him to go to theater, feet were killing and sweat dripping off his temples.

“I can’t fix them, here you can buy these”, cobbler handed him a pair of Hawaii slip ons.

“What are these?”, asked Narad looking at the soft sandal shaped pair.

“Go ahead try it, they are very comfortable”.

Hesitantly Narad slipped on the Hawaii and was amazed, they were soft, did not have to pinch his toes to hold to them like he did with wooden sandals.

“What are these”, asked Narad, a smile had broken on his face, they were so comfortable.

“Just pay two hundred rupees, I feel bad for you”,said the cobbler while he got busy with his sewing.

“I like these, but I don’t have rupees!!!”, said Narad, “Here take this, but I need these sandals”, he jumped with joy handing him a gold chain.

“I don’t want your chain, you seem to be a nice guy, go home now it’s hot, pay me later, don’t cheat me, I know you come to this theater”, cobbler waged his finger sizing up Narad.

Narad turned around the bend to check on this theater, he saw bunch of people dressed as Amitabh Bachchan and Elvis Presley impersonation, of course he could not make anything of it. This was it for him, drifted back into the clouds and reported to Lord Brahma, “Fire me if you want to, I am never going back there”, flashing his new sandals.

“I am not firing you! Go take rest”, Lord could no longer control his laughter. Narad walked away with a swag enjoying his new sandals.

The meeting went on for hours at end and there were no takers who would go down there and do the job they are supposed to do. Lord Shiva had declared, “I have gotten too comfortable with Kailash, it’s hot down there, I am not going”. Of the top three two had already ruled out. I being the third, well if you don’t know I am an incarnation of Lord Vishnu; the third supreme god. I had to speak up, “We can send Ganesha, he is very popular among them, I see every car dashboard adorned with elephant head wobbling there”.

So Ganesha was summoned, he came with a laddu in his mouth, looked and his father respectfully, then sized me up and bowed his head to Lord Brahma.

“Ganesha, we want you to go down to Earth, looks like they need your help, also they believe in you”, Lord Brahma was like a car salesman selling his idea.

“What! Did you see what they did to Narad?, he looks so normal yet he was ridiculed, I have this elephant head, thanks to this man here, if I go down there some billionaire or a politician will claim my ownership and keep me in a cell and start billing the customers for my viewing”, he went and fell to the feet of Brahma and Shiva walked away staring at me, for suggesting this idea.

The meeting continued, actually it was only me and Brahma that were discussing, Shiva was peaceful. Lord Brahma ran his fingers through his gray beard and looked at me pleading.

“Alright, alright, I will go”, I said throwing my flute on the floor. Shiva just smiled in the corner, he stood up to leave, it was settled. I had to work on logistics with Brahma, first thing I said was, I am going to lose this attire, thanks to my mom, who made my look a legend but this peacock feather and dhoti had to go.

Brahma got curious and asked, “What do you plan to wear?, I know you like those gold jewels”.

He is right, I have this affinity towards this bling, I just love it, “I don’t know yet, I just don’t want to be fooled like Narad.” I really can’t believe you guys treated him like that, what a change millennials can bring. After he saying he wants to help a beggar, he was ridiculed, what will a common man do us when we get down there, I wonder.

Anyway Lord Brahma has left it to me to wear or do whatever I want to, all he wants is somebody to get down there and bring some order. So good or bad news, I am coming, I do need some input from you guys, especially the millennials, it’s your time to shine. I am planning on getting hooked with Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, really what do I do with instagram, I am the most progressive out here but, I am clueless about instagram, I know people post pictures there, but what good would do that to me. I am also done with these chariots, planning to get a fast ride; Lamborghini or Tesla, I am torn. Tesla will be good in a sense, I don’t have to drive and relax at the back.

I am thinking we will see how it goes…

Kirik Party (2016)

The prologue (jump to review)

This has been the most elusive movie for me, ever since I have heard about it, it had already been taken off the screens here in New Jersey, needless to say I had least interest in watching Kannada movies when Bollywood churns out everyday a new movie and friends around me dropping their jaws for not watching this one or that, recently I have also been watching Marathi movies like Sairaat (2016) and Court (2014), which had made waves of their own. Got calls from India; Kirik Party is a good movie, you should check it out. My quest for the same in local stores for a pirated copy went in vain. Many a times I googled for an online copy, never watched Kirik Party but ended up watching some other Hindi movies. There are times I was jubilant to see on YouTube Kirik Party run time 2 hr 40 some minutes, the movie starts fine and then after the ghastly cigarette ad, it turns out to be a third rated movie. Dejected I gave up on watching the movie or so I say with blood shot eyes.

After an year of air date, I landed in India for vacation, vacation was fine, family was even better. It’s my wife’s sister-in-law that disturbed my peace.

“Shrikant anna, did you watch Kirik Party, it’s Superrr”, she said.

“No!”.

“I will get it for you, you need to watch it”, she darted out the door.

I lay on the couch, day after day in front of TV, she being busy with her house chores ran to neighbors house to get me a copy of DVD, she did manage to find few, one was a very bad Camera recording and rest just did not work. I just thanked her for trying so hard and she was depressed that I couldn’t get to watch that one good Kannada movie after long time.

After landing back in US, once in a while I googled for Kirik Party, nice song videos but never a complete screening. I had begun to like the movie. Sadly I am not here to preach about marketing but Kannada industry has lacked a lot in this, every Hindi, Tamil or Telugu ends up on Einthusan after a week but Kannada; how do you expect Kannada movies to become popular. Recently bought another Chinese video box that streams pirated videos of entire worlds collection but English; we have Kodi for that. Started watching live cricket matches and latest and greatest Sony TV comedy shows. For the first time in US my wife bragged she had watched Jagga Jasoos (2017), where her friends dropped their mouths in awe.

“Where did you get that, I want to watch it too, is it on Einthusan?”

“No! It’s not on einthu, it’s on this box”, she beamed.

Out of curiosity and zero hope browsed Kannada section for Kirik Party; you thought I had given up on this movie. Lo behold I found it; a working HD copy!

The review

To my pleasant surprise the movie opened up to a beautiful upbeat song, bunch of boys, being boys in a college and having fun, is the most winning formula in any of the Indian movies. Hollywood has long given up on this theme since Grease series. For me it brought the pleasant memories of my college days watching another best Kannada movie of that time, Premloka. The comedies were not slapstick but some creative humorous dialogues. It was a long wait but it paid off for all the pain I had taken. It was almost a musical like Premloka; unlike stupid musical; Jagga Jasoos, got involved in the romantic comedy, had begun appreciating the directing skills of Rishab Shetty and decent acting by Rakshit Shetty until they killed that Senior girl, Rashmika Mandanna;no I mean really she looked senior. For a moment I thought it was his dream, asked my wife, if she really died. I don’t know if I dozed off; I do a lot with chick flicks, my wife is very annoyed with me for that. There are times I watch movies in installment because I sleep half way, sadly she watches every time the whole movie. Next thing I see is that there is an election in the college and best of friends have broken up canvassing against each other. I am like did I wake to Shiva (1989)? Just to confirm, I ask my wife, that Chasmish girl is gone, I had begun to like her. She said “Yes” sternly. Then I see this high school girl Samyukha Hegde flirting with protagonist, I am like come on, don’t kill him now gods sake. The girl is very good on the screen but again a misfit in the story; Rishab, where are you going with this man. Then he steals some scenes from 3 Idiots (2009) and makes Rakshit drive on the Royal Enfield and go missing, why? Now the movie has become so painful you start to enjoy the torture, I am saying let me see how he will tie all the ends of this movie and pull the curtain down, he does after three agonizing hours. The End.

You can’t help notice that the graduation party has the banner 2013, the movie has been delayed to release

~~Every good movie must be an inspiration but never implemented in yours~~

Hidden Figures (2016)

Sheldon Cooper (Big Bang Theory) makes a first movie and gets beaten up in NASA mission by our protagonist, thats a first. I could see him twitching with pain when Katherine Johnson, erases the black board (no pun intended it is black board not white board) and rewrites the formulas for John Glen‘s pod re-entry, unfortunately Penny was not there to console him.

The review

Hidden Figures is a wonderful uplifting story of three African American ladies during segregation, making it to the top in NASA space mission. The bubbly, Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe) who wants to be an aeronautical engineer in the white mans world, men watch her struggle through a observatory window when her heel gets stuck on the launch pad. The senior, Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) who is managing a colored computers – literal meaning is a black women employed for computing. The genius of the trio is Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson) who is calculating rocket’s trajectory and re-entry crossing odds with Paul Stafford (Jim Parsons famously known as Sheldon Cooper). The movie is fairly star studded, Al Harrison (Kevin Costner) is head of the launch mission who at first is very skeptical of the Katherine’s math abilities, he is a fantastic scientist with great leadership skills, but his human side is revealed when he discovers that Katherine took half hour breaks on a critical mission days just to learn that she had to walk half a mile (rain or shine) to relieve herself in the colored bathrooms. Takes a sledge hammer and shatters the signs of color of the facility and declares “There are no colors here at NASA, we are all one color”. In the other building Dorothy updates her staff with coding (FORTRAN) so that they don’t become obsolete on the installation of IBM supercomputers in the building, in the interim gains the much anticipated respect from her supervisor Vivian Mitchell (Kirsten Dunst). Mary breaks the barrier to be the first women to go to a College for White only through a court order. The icing on the cake is when management decides to take off Katherine from the mission control since all the calculations can be done by IBM computers, John Glenn personally orders to get Katherine to verify the calculations done by the computer. She oversees safe re-entry of John Glen in the Mission Control room filled with White people (I mean all men dressed in white shirts), with Katherine in a bright colored dress. She later goes on to supervise the Apollo 11 launch, mission to moon.

The movie is a pleasant watch, very well directed by Theodore Melfi, a must watch for all children.

Passengers (2016)

Hmm, where do I begin with this movie, its an arms race to build a colony on Mars and beyond, first we had Gravity(2013) where you saw what it was like getting drifted in Space, then came Interstellar(2014) and Martian(2015) where they landed and grew a plant there. Here in passengers they have taken it to the next level, passengers settling on another planet. Every next movie uses part imagination and part scientific evidence to push the envelope backed by NASA. George Lucas is like you all so 18th century.

The review

The first 30 mins the movie is played by Chris Pratt (Jurassic World 2015) is awakened on a spaceship prematurely since his hibernating pod has malfunctioned, with no one available to talk; sounds scary but we have seen worst on Cast Away(2013). He scans through all the profiles of 1500 passengers and picks to wake up JLaw ( her name in the movie is Aurora, why did you not leave her sleeping, don’t you watch Disney Movies man). Don’t worry, ‘If I was you, I would be waking her up too‘. Now the next 30 mins or more they are busy trying to find out why only they are up and rest are hibernating peacefully for 90 years. Whatever happened to ‘Hum Tum Ek Kamre Mein Band Hon, Aur Chavi Ko Jaye‘, maybe I am old schooled they had a whole ship by themselves with all the amenities, food and wine at disposal. Lo and behold after an hour into the movie they find romance between them. It took less time to bring two Pandas together in NYC Zoo. Since Chris discovered sex; by the way JLaw claims this was her first on screen, he thought of waking up Julia Roberts too, but then the director yelled at him, it would cost them another 2o million.

All is well and Chris has planned to propose JLaw at the bar where our only humanized robot Arthur as witness, he takes off to get the ring and Jlaw is chatting with Arthur, disaster strikes, Arthur spills the beans as how Chris contemplated waking her up with guilt and finally went for it and now all looks so good with them together. JLaw is furious and breaks up with Chris for forcefully waking her up.

As fate has it, Chris waking up abruptly was beginning of more problems to arise on the ship and now Chris has to get out into the space and fix it. Love is lost, what more can he loose, he gets out and fixes it but drifts into space. JLaw could have let him go, Brad Pitt was sleeping in one of the pods, looks like she was smitten by Chris and risks her life to bring him back. You think she will fail in the mission, hello so predictable, then they live happily ever after. No really they do and leave a legacy behind for the hibernators to see a rain-forest created in the space ship after 90 years.

I like JLaw, her movies are best but if I have to watch her I would watch Hunger Games again.

Girls: They got voting rights!

We were travelling in a public city bus in Bengaluru. My son then eleven years old, suddenly noticed that there were few seats in the front and yet I asked him to stand behind in the middle of the bus.

He went, “Can we sit there?”

I said, “No, they are reserved for women, see that LADIES ONLY“.

He was appalled, “They always get special treatment”. I hear the middle-schoolers frustration where girls rule the world. With a smile I said,”Stop watching Disney Channel”, and asked him to sit in one of those seats and I would stand beside him. He did not want to sit anyways for the joy of looking through the streets of Bengaluru, where the driver maneuvered through the busy traffic.

After a while the bus came to a dead halt in the middle of the road, he asked, “Why’s the bus not moving”, I looked around and told him that there is a strike ahead, people are blocking the road. Police guided the bus to pass thru the crowd, where a bunch of girls were protesting with placards. He asked “what’s happening?”

“Girls are protesting for something…”

Actually girls were fighting for the case where Bengaluru was shocked by the heinous incident of a elementary school girl raped by her teacher. I just did not want the kid to know this terrible incident.

Then came a statement out of his mouth that has stuck in my head to this date.
“What more do they want, they got voting rights!”
He was studying about American History – womens civil rights at that time in his school.

Here we are in a huge election season, electing our first female president of free world with a vitriolic campaign from both sides. My children are actively involved in the process. The eleven year old is now a teenager following the debate process; analyzing it. Yes, DJTs latest locker room rant is out in the open. My younger one, elementary grade son comes home from school and asks “Pops! who are you voting for?” I joked “Donald J Trump”
“Eeew, if he wins I am moving to Canada!”
~~Personally I don’t consider DJT as a man~~ (This is my locker room rant, don’t quote me on this, baliki main tho yeh kahoon ki woh purush hii nahi hain, mahapurush hai – AAA), if I say it out loud girls will hate me, hmm! what would Caitlyn Jenner think.

Hillary R Clinton should be winning with a landslide victory after DJTs comments. Let’s looks at the stats. She garners around 38% of women votes (source: CNN/ORC), discounting 10% of them as unmarried, remaining 28% of their spouses are supposed to vote for HRC, 0% of men oppose to their wives (source: WhatsApp).

Sure most of us condemn the objectification of women especially by our presidential candidate DJT. But our focus should be on the women in the society who are doing marvelous things, most recently there are women like Elizabeth Warren; who single-handedly brought down the CEO of Wells Fargo, FLOTUS; who is out to raise women across the world from illiteracy. Talking of objectification, KimK is the epitome of women objectification, like my son said, Girls have right to vote her out of social media.

(It has been extremely difficult for me to put this post articulately, also I am biased, so in the end may the best woman win the Election 2016)

Note I have not hyperlinked KimK, those who don’t know her should be proud of themselves, those who know why check her out. Hint Cailtyn Jenner was her father 🙂

Money Monster (2016)

The prologue (jump to review)

Wifey wanted to watch the Civil War with kids on Mothers day weekend. I politely declined going to theater and waste my hard earned money. Then comes the emotional blackmail ‘you never want to spend time with your family’. I said if we have to go to movies then I would prefer to watch Mother’s Day – starring Jennifer Aniston (wink wink). Surprisingly she agreed too, the plan was we would drop kids in the Civil War hall and we go to Mother’s Day. The usual kids weekend activities began and next thing we know it was bed time. Movies just vanished in thin air. Then came the following weekend, while I was taking care of Madhav’s activities and she doing Sarang’s, she just called and asked me to get four tickets to Civil War on my way back to 6.30pm show.

As usual I said again “I am not interested to watch Civil War.

“No, we are going with Josh (Sarang’s classmate), just get four tickets”.

Wow! she had just deleted me from the consideration. I was cool with it.

While I booked four tickets, couldn’t help but notice that there was Money Monster airing around the same time. Decided to go alone – felt lonesome, stepped out of line and dialed good friend who lived close by. Him and I been long time Wall Street guys, wasn’t a hard sell to convince him to join for the movie; especially starring – George Clooney and Julia Roberts put the last nail in the coffin. Believe me, guys who are not into guys, dig Clooney, and Julia is Americas sweetheart. Enough of the prologue, lets cut to the Chase (Manhattan)…

The review

There are scores of movies made on Wall Street and this is no different, but this starts with a comedy, where Clooney is Jim Cramer of Mad Money. I jump out of my chair cheering for Clooney for mocking Cramer (the bastard of Wall Street – no regrets on calling that), while the humor continued on the screen, I am wondering is this the movie where Clooney is Austin Powers of Michael Douglas’s Wall Street with Julia as his sidekick, his voice in the ear. That comedy ends soon when on air Clooney is taken hostage by an unknown delivery guy(Jack O’Connell). Julia helps Clooney get thru the crisis while staying in his ear all the time. Finally the camera moves out of the studios and lands with the protagonist on the Main Streets of Manhattan for all those moviegoers to guess the streets while the camera pans thru. The usual 99 percenters are rooting for Jack to blow the heads of Clooney, disregarding their personal safety where Clooney is strapped with Bomb vest. Talk about saving money by Jodie Foster for creating the entire movie in a recording studio, the camera is back into the Financial Building where the real villain; CEO of public traded firm IBIS; akin to Bernie Madoff is made to face the camera and tell the truth as to why his stock crashed 800 million in half hour, where millions had lost their nest eggs. You guessed it, the hostage taker is one of them. The villain starts off with the usual line ‘This is one of those glitches in the computer that triggered the flash selling’. Clooney’s sidekick has done some research by now and demands a real answer, turns out this wall street genius who was delivering 18% returns to his clients over decades had made one wrong bet in South Africa that had wiped out his entire portfolio.

The movie is fast paced and don’t miss the comedy in the beginning, because thats all you get. Clooney and Julia are good but it’s Jack O’Connell who steals the show. The movie is not a block buster.

Disclaimer:Although I have worked for two decades on wall street, you might wonder am I the The Wolf of Wall Street, I am not, I am just that bitch who creates the glitch; a computer guy from the back alleys of Mumbai.

Chase Manhattan: while Clooney walks on the streets you can’t help but notice the iconic Federal Building(Gold Reserve) on one side and Chase Manhattan on the other.

Shrikant: The grinch who stole Sarang’s Christmas

This blog is from the archives, was unable to post it earlier due to legal obligations

Rohini had committed to buying a Black Ops 2 for Sarang, I learnt it later that she was shopping for one – she had come to my advise as to where to shop for it. I showed my disapproval of the same, as I had always been against buying gun toys for our children. Till date they had never had a toy gun ever. This was somewhere two weeks before Christmas and Rohini hoped she could buy one for a good deal and have it shipped by Christmas.

Now I stepped in to discuss this with Sarang. Up until now I had never shopped for kids Christmas it has always been Rohini’s arena. Moment he heard that I was planning not to get him BlackOps2, he retorted vehemently, “Papa, you can’ t do that, Mommy has already promised me, now she can’t take back her word.”
“But you know, how I feel about you playing those violent games”.
“But Papa!, you can turn off the blood and bleeps off the game, all the kids have one since two years now”.
“Well, I let you play at their houses that is big enough, besides you are not really into that game, why buy it”.
“Well you never bought me one, how could I get better like those kids, I am getting one this time, you cannot stop me. I have also been a very good boy this year and you know that”.

That was true, he was a very good and responsible kid this year and I had expressed that feeling over and over this past few months , I never do that – why that’s a separate blog all together.

“If you have to buy it and if your Mommy has promised you, you get it, but I don’t approve it.”
My disapproval never flies by him, it always hits him.
“That’s fine, I am still getting it”. Well I will take back my previous statement.
Looks like he was determined to have it, I was surprised why he was so persistent, he usually never is and never likes to own/have anything without my approval, I always persuade him my way, but it looked like I was loosing this battle. May be he was growing up, more determined to his choices rather depend on his parents anymore.

I made one more last effort.
“How much does it cost?”
“60 bucks”.
“60 bucks??” , I screamed.
“That’s how much a game always costs”.
I had bought him a PS3 from past 3 years but had never bought a game. Just played on trial games.
“OK, here’s the thing, would you like to listen to me”.
“What now, I am not backing off”.
“You can get it, but can you wait to buy it after Christmas, it usually goes on sale, you can have the 60 bucks right now, and buy it after christmas when it goes on sale for 40 and put 20 in your piggy bank”.
“What I will not have a gift for Christmas!”.
“I will buy something for you, for this Christmas”. I really had thought I will buy a gift for him this year as I had felt he really deserved one not by Santa Claus standard but my standard. Note he was always a good kid by Santa Claus standard that’s why Rohini got him one every year.

“Fine!, soon after Christmas we are going shopping and getting one, whatever price it is”, with a sigh.
“Deal”, I said. Strike ONE.

By this time the Sandy Elementary news broke out and I was not in the mood of discussing with Sarang and associating this with violent games played by the kids, but did not want to buy him a game for sure.

“Papa, can we go to mall and get the game NOW”. Christmas had passed.
“Why would you want to buy now, you know we are going on a vacation to Poconos and you will never get to play until we come back after new year, why not just buy then”.
“What?, fine but I am buying then, this is going on for too long.”
This was Strike TWO.

Up on the snow mountains we had welcomed a brand new year 2013. During the vacation, I reminded him how much he loved Skiing as we skied everyday. I slowly began to talk about the Sandy incident, he had also learnt a lot from his teachers at school by this time.
“Why would you want to buy BlackOps2 now, when you know that it is all over the news that these violent games are leading to this aggressive behavior”.
“But Papa, there was some crazy guy who took up the guns and did a terrible thing, not all kids who play guns game end being violent.”
“No not really, but it only aids,”, I said.
“But the people who go into military also use guns, so do cops, it is like practicing to be one.”
“I know, I will buy the game in future, it is also rated “Mature”, may be when you become 12 or 13, just lets not buy it now when the sentiments are flying so high in the media”.
“No, I am still buying it, all my friends have it and you know it”.
“I know, but they already had it from past year or two, just buying it now is not a good idea after this news has come out, hold it back for some more time, you can keep playing at your friends place.”
“No Papa, NO, I am still buying it when we go back home.”

I thought now I had lost it. I was really surprised that he was so persistent on getting it. This had never happened earlier except to one time. He was five years old I had taken him to grocery shopping one evening, a regular grocery shopping father and son, then go back home. As we were walking to the checkout he noticed a small mattel car on the shelf.
He went, “Papa, I want it”.
You just don’t buy it because he wants, “No put it back”.
“Papa please, I want this car”.
“No we just don’t buy something when we find something in the store”.
“But papa, please I want THIS car, please…”.
“You have lot of cars at home”, I had got 20 car set for him.
“But papa, I want this car”, It was purple in color, I found nothing appealing about it.
I said, “No put it back”.
“Papa please I am getting it”, he walked towards the checkout.
“Put it back,” I demanded. Tears started rolling, he pleaded.
“This one time papa, I will never ask for anything again”.
“You can’t come in the store and cry and demand for things, I not buying it period.” it was costing less than 5 dollars.
He started rolling on the floor and cried for it as I put it up on the shelf. Rolling on the floor was new to me. It baffled me, he had never done that before, but there is always a first time. I picked up the toy and asked him to get up and we walked to checkout. He wiped his tears as he carried the toy car to the parking lot. Moment I buckled him in the car seat, I yanked the car from his hand and told him that I will be returning this back to the store and he is not getting it. He cried all the way to home begging please and how badly he had needed it. I had listened to none of that. We came home and he narrated to his mom about the incident and she told that it was alright to have him that car. I said, I am not buying that, he had rolled on the floor in the store. He begged again he would do anything to have that car. I said to him then I would place this car up on the shelf for a week and he not watch TV and be a good a listener for a week then he would get it back. He accepted the deal. A week passed long story short he had earned the toy. Later I learned that it was a purple car from CARS movie and it was fairly a rare find as per his friend who had it in his class. Did I feel bad, YES I did.

Now coming back to this day, I was sensing the same for BlackOps2, else he would not do it. But I was determined to sway him away from it, for Sandy news – at least for now, I had seen Fiscal Cliff gaining steam in the media.

Vacation was coming to an end, it was very joyful for him, I still had in the mind that I am not supposed to buy him when we got back home. He on the contrary was making plans to play with his friends when he got home.

One more deal, as we drove back home.
“Sarang, how about I buy you a snowboard, instead of BlackOps2”.
Snowboard was his favorite even though I had insisted him to practice more of skies before he moved on to snowboard.
“Nice try Papa, I am sticking with BlackOps2”.
Rohini chimed in, “Sarang, think about the deal he is offering, BlackOps2 costs 60 and snowboard costs at least 300”.
He thought for a minute…
“Papa, can I pick any snowboard I want in the shop?”
My eyes lit up, ” Sure you can”.
‘”Nah! I still want BlackOps2, I can keep doing skiing for now”.
Some more persuading went from his mommy, then he thought for few more minutes and asked, “Can I put some more demands with the snowboard?”

I put my poker face and said to him sternly, “Dude, you won’t get
this deal again and again, I will give you till end of the day, you come up with your demands, we sign a contract, then it is deal, else get going with your BlackOps2”.
“I want snowboard and some more what do I need to do”.
“When we get home you write up a contract between you and I and we will stick with that”.
“What does that mean?”
“That means you write what you want for giving up BlackOps2, I will look at the contract make some amendments to suit my conditions, we both agree then we sign at the bottom, that will be the contract, if you fail to stand by that then you get nothing and if I fail then I will have to provide you both the BlackOps2 and your snowboard”.

It looked like a deal to him, there was no further discussion until we reached home. He went straight writing his needs in the contract and later I made my amendments to the contract. Attached is what we agreed and signed upon.

For now it looks like I have pushed it to July 2014. we are just barely welcoming 2013 – who has seen July 2014, I will deal with it then. Strike THREE, you are out!

As of date its Sep 2015, hope Sarang does not read this blog

Sarang and Madhav Skiing Video

hadagali

Up in air