Madness and Mayhem

Button is so clearly developing a mind of his own. He can now babble 'ba ba ba' continuously, but chooses to do it ONLY when his dad is around. His baby-sitter is not helping my case by teaching him how to say 'appa' all the time. So the moment P comes into the room, Button goes into babble-overdrive. Its a task to shut him up!

ARR's youngest fan is Button indeed(after all both of us are such staunch fans of ARR). Whenever he listens to 'Masakali' he begins grinning. He also goes still (as if when he grins the rest of the body cannot move). I caught on immediately and began putting on the tape only when I had to change his diapers. So one evening, I put on the CD (despite the fact that he did not need a diaper change) and he started howling and stopped only when I pulled out a diaper and showed him. Gosh, how fast does a routine set in?

Button loves to watch the view from my bedroom and what a view it is (pls refer to pics). In the migratory season (NOW), there are scores of egrets and herons and storks and other such birds which alight on the mudflats near my home in low tide (those little specks in the pic). Button loves to watch them. These birds fly in a large group and often change mudflats in a huge swirl of white wings. Button, at 9 months, does not understand the concept of 'distance' yet. He puts out his hands in the hope of capturing one of 'em and gets annoyed when none of them alight near him. Bozo!

In TV news, I feel really sorry for a character in 'Balika Vadhu', whose husband-to-be is killed on the way to their wedding. But I feel sorrier for the characters who have to mouth silly lines... for example, the mother of the slain groom. As he son is bleeding, she has a line that goes "Dekhiye na, un badmaashon ne hamare bete to kya kiya". Duh! And even more amusing is the fact that the boy (who is shot through his chest and forced to lie on his mom's lap) smiles in memory of his waiting bride and refuses to let go of some flowers he picked for he. Is is possible to smile when a bullet is making friends with your lungs? Double duh.

Another TV grouse. Yes, it is shocking that Sri Lankan cricketers were attacked in Lahore. But CNN-IBN had no business talking to Javed Miandad the way they did. The reporters seemed to imply that terrorist attacks in Mumbai posed no security threats, but God save Pakistan if even a fire cracker shouted out to the cricketers. They asked him several RUDE questions with phrases like "in your country" and "terror outfits seem to originate in Pakistan". Please give normal citizens of the country a break. After all India has several terror outfits too (Ram Sene included). No need to harass a poor ex-cricketer. Am certainly Cheesed off.

Am continuing to battle maid trouble and lack of will power to lose weight. Hope both get resolved quickly. :) My last maid stopped doing one chore after the other citing lack of time, until she wore my patience out. When I asked her about her inefficiency, she said she would only do 1 - 3 of 10 agreed tasks as she did not 'feel' like doing the rest for me! (Is it me or is it me?) My current maid, on the 3rd day of her employment wants me to increase her salary by 200 bucks every month. Now, the money is one part, but what about professionalism? Where is it? I feel like am being held threat by a gang of extortionists.