January 2009 update

It was a depressing start to 2009. All the three of us, Amma, Appa and myself went down with flu which we may have caught from our new year revelry at East Coast Park. We had to postpone our Bangalore trip by a couple of days and then when we arrived there, Bangalore was very cold and Bagyam-paati also had to undergo an emergency operation.

The entire time we were there, we were mostly visiting the hospital. Appa took me go-karting at Patel's Inn. I decided then that when I become big, i'll be an F1 driver and my car will go zoom-zoom-zoom very fast!!!

Appa also wanted me to experience the Birla planetarium in Bangalore and we had a good time viewing the story of our universe and its various inhabitants.

Appa also took me to the Visweswariah Museum in Bangalore which is where he said he learnt a lot of things while he was a kid. I saw scale models of India's rockets, the various machines, the optics displays and except for a minor scare when I went missing from Appa and Amma's radar for about 3 mins, everything went fine there.

I also witnessed first-hand the whims of Bangalore's auto drivers. Appa got into a swearing match with an auto-driver outside the museum who demanded payment far beyond the normal rate. There was also a ludicrous experience when the fare went above 99 and the auto-driver immediately raised it to 115 and Appa was mighty pissed with that and kept on arguing on the principles and the policeman interceded and Appa had his way. Appa then told Amma that it wasn't worth arguing. His verdict: Just don't take the auto.

We also managed to catch up with Harsh maama at Crossword and we also had a shake-shake fries experience in McDonalds. In Singapore, the shake-shake fries seems to be an alien concept.

Then I went to Ambikapur, my mom's maika (hometown) to see Lacchi paati (grandma). On India's Republic Day on Jan 26, I went to Lachi-paati's school and watched her unfurl the flag and joined the kids in singing the national anthem.

My doctor perima (aunt) had come over from Benares where she is training to be a doctor. She told me the importance of brushing teeth regularly. This made Amma's job a lot easier and now I brush my teeth regularly without a lot of persuasion. We also went to Mahamaya mandir (kovil) and Sai mandir (kovil), two of the most important places to visit in Ambikapur.

The song of the month was Massakali