What is a universal passion that our country shares? First there’s Cricket & then maybe Bollywood. Add to it a dash of suspense and page turning mystery and you have a story that hooks you in from the start. That’s what I felt about this tale spun by the author Madhav Nayak. ‘A Murder is Fixed’ succeeds in conjuring up an evocative narrative that has the edge of seat excitement of a cricket match, the hair raising mystery of a criminal story and the ease of a comforting bunch of characters that soften the riddle of a whodunnit! I enjoyed Nayak’s debut novel and here is my review of it.
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National Nutrition Week is celebrated every year from 1st to 7th September. The initiative was conceptualised by the central government in 1982 to talk about the causes, effects, and the solutions to malnutrition. The theme of the program varies every year. This year the theme is ‘Better Child Health’ and focuses on addressing issues related to undernutrition in the first 1000 days of a child’s life. Children’s nutrition is a crucial factor which determines the quality and well being of the adults that they will grow into.
In the first 6 months or 180 days, of a child’s life, the sole nutrition should come from milk. The government and other regulatory & informative bodies have been working hard to propagate the virtue of breastmilk for babies should attain prime importance. In practice, while most are fairly successful in achieving this milestone, they are stumped when it comes to nutrition in the days proceeding the 6 months where other foods are introduced for baby. Even well-meaning & determined caregivers find themselves at a loss when it comes to children’s nutrition . Continue reading
You’d never believe me if I told you I was mildly telepathic, but it’s true and I can prove it. For as long as I can remember I would begin humming a song and then someone would turn a TV or the radio on and that very song would play on it. I would idly walk into the living room, not sure what I came here for, and then the phone would ring and I would answer it within half a ring. In the days of yore when our phones did not flash the name or number of the person calling, I would have a hunch whose call it was. When people began conversations with me, I cut to the chase and gave them the answer or solution they were looking for. “I was just about to ask you that, how did you know that?” was a line I heard very often. Continue reading
April 2018. What a month it has been! I have always noticed and said to people too, that in my life I see a complete scarcity of action and experiences and then face a flood, nay a cloud burst, of activity. So too with this April. And when that flood happened I felt so overwhelmed to even acknowledge that I faced it all – joyful moments to utter remorse and despair. But the bottomline is that I emerged. And lived to write this gratitude post. Continue reading
There was a whole generation of babies that was raised on screens. Screens while they ate, dozed off and played. Then came a time when it was uncool to shove a screen in front of a baby. Zero screen time was the order given. Research papers proved how screen time was damaging not just our children’s eyes but their brains too. But is a zero screen time feasible at all in a world which is becoming increasingly online? Does it not put immense pressure on the parent to “entertain” their child themselves without relying on technology? Is it really a positive thing to do in a world where technology is everywhere? What happens when the parent needs a break badly.. even if it is just to have a quick shower? Is it bad to rely on technology then?
Yelling. It is so common for parents to subject their children to yelling. And then one day start receiving it all back in return, until all you hear are yelling matches in the house and no one is winning. I think we will all agree that yelling is unhealthy and best avoidable. No parent enters their parenting journey wanting to yell. But somewhere along the way it just happens. And then there is no turning the clock back to a time when there was no yelling. But like everything else, yelling does not have to be the point of no return. With conscious “no yelling” and consistent practice, yelling can be relegated to a place from where it will never return. Continue reading
In my circle of mommy friends, I am perhaps one of the oldest. Sometimes I feel like an old fogey and cannot make any sense of what the mommies are talking about. Other times I feel like the enlightened one who has had the privilege of seeing a few more (or decades) of summer than the gang. For the longest time I felt trapped and did not know if I was part of this cool gang. Nor did I feel comfortable with the older lot of mommies whose children were finishing school and exiting their teens. I thought something was wrong with me. Then I discovered I was not the only one.
1979. This was the problem. It was not me or you. It was the damn year that I was born in. Continue reading
Right brain or left brain? Logic or emotions? Did you know you can actually consciously program the brain and develop it. There are even ways to help sharpen your brain as you grow older, such as these brain focus supplements if you are really struggling to develop your brain. Sure, you know that all your life’s experiences contribute to shaping your thoughts, feeling, emotions and personality. But did you stop to think, that in physiological terms, all that you do – from breathing to deep analytical thinking, everything is controlled by the brain. How then as parents, can we ignore this important aspect about our babies and children? Surely when we parent children and aim to give them the best of food, health, experiences, skills, we can also focus on the brain, right? Wow, one more thing added to the list. Hurray, or maybe not! Continue reading
Vegan! It seems to be in fashion right now. In every corner of the globe, veganism is in. People are asking “Is it vegan?” And that’s not all, parents are choosing to alter their lifestyles in order to raise vegan children. Has the world gone mad or is this a call which will truly save mankind and this planet?
What is veganism?
Veganism is beyond vegetarianism. While being a vegetarian means you can include dairy products in your diet, veganism shuns everything that comes from an animal. So that includes dairy, eggs, seafood and obviously animal meat, but also things like honey.
Being vegan also means saying no to using any product that may contain animal products. This includes footwear, bags, cosmetics, belts and even using animals for hunting or transport. Continue reading
Years ago my husband and I were lazing on a fairly secluded beach in South Goa. There we witnessed a sight, which we quickly made up our minds for, was to be our parenting mantra for the future. We saw a little boy who belonged to parents from Europe. It was actually a group of some 3 families who were travelling with babies. He was dressed in nothing but plain white underwear and was frolicking freely on the beach, playing, falling, running on the sand. His parents sipped their drinks under the shade of the beach resort’s cafe. The child was living his life. He must not have been more than a year and half. He could barely walk. But he was out there, living the touristy life. And we wanted it too. We wanted to give our future child that carefree life.
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