Father of two daughters

My children love reading. They also love painting, and playing. I am often asked about where and how to get some of the things that my children are fond of using. I decided to create a complete post where I can share some links of the things that I recommend. The links provided below are clickable links which will take you to a merchant website. Most of the products will also have a substitute, and I encourage you to look for alternatives, and opt for the best rated or the most cost effective ones. 1.      Chronicles of Narnia complete set 2.     Percy Jackson complete set 3.     Amish Ramchandra series 4.     Amish Shiva Trilogy 5.     Hats, Hoods and Humiliation by Hiranya Verma 6.      Camlin Kokuyo artist paint brush set 7.     Camel Premium poster colours 8.     Cello ColourUp colour pencil set 9.     Kindle paperwhite 10.  ...

       The “litti” is a ball of wheat dough filled with “Sattu” which is basically the flour of  roast gram seed. This stuffed dough-ball is cooked over slow fire of wood charcoal or cow-dung cake(colloquially called "Goitha"), which gives an earthy flavour and a unique taste. Together with the humble brinjal “Chokha”, it is an integral part of cuisine of Bihar and West UP. For people coming from these parts of the world, there is nothing as delicious as the “litti-chokha”, and a call for “Litti party”  is likely to elicit a stronger emotion than an invitation from the White House. My wife informed me that they would be celebrating Christmas this year by having a “litti” party at home. My sister-in-law and her husband were designated the main cooks as well as the hosts for the evening. I, being physically separated from my wife due to an ongoing pandemic which caught us in geographically different parts of the country, was not going to be a part of the ce...

                 I have two nieces. And then there is the head niece. Together with my nephew, they formed the bunch of terrorists in my house. And I was their favourite target for their acts of terror. The years were around the turn of the millennium, when we used to stay at my hometown. I was a hosteller, and whenever I visited home during my term break, I used to look forward to being ambushed by them. Typically, in the evenings, or in the late, lazy afternoons when schools would be over and there was nothing better to do, they would ambush me and start troubling me with all types of questions. Most of the questions were one-liners – “why?” The purpose was never to extract information but to keep asking till one gives up. Surprisingly, I used to succeed almost a half of the times into forcing them to break the monologue. My most common technique used to involve tickling them, after which they would run after me to return the eff...

 Parent's note: Below is a piece written by Shaivi, to be submitted as part of her homework. I do not like school. School is always so boring, and the teachers are mostly strict. But, I would like to go to school if a few changes were made. Here is how I would want my classroom to be. It would be fun if there were no school uniform, and the desks floating in the air. There would be a wooden box attached to the desk so that we could keep our bags, and ladders to go to the desks. There would be a huge black cloud instead of a blackboard, and 10 colours of never ending chalk. The desks would have a section inside which had a supply of things that were needed for crafts, paintings, some books, and other boredom busters. The walls would be decorated with jokes and riddles that changed every day. I wish that when Coronavirus would be over and schools will have started, the classrooms would transform something like this. Manuscript of Shavi's essay (I hope the teachers are listeni...

Aadya is bored. She has been caught up in a routine of regular, boring stuff, and is greatly bored by the lack of change. When she went to her Grandparents’ house yesterday, my mother – in law remarked that she was looking and behaving a little off. The normally chirpy girl had refused to crack a joke, or had not creates any ruckus for almost half an hour after reaching the house, and that was most unusual. The council of responsible adults consisting of my mother – in – law and my wife got together for a serious discussion, and concluded that the young teenager was just a little off. They decided not to take any special action. Aadya has never faced such humdrum regularity in her life. Every weekday, she gets up in the morning and gets ready for a non – challenging academic session. Thanks to the greatly curtailed syllabus, she is generally ahead of the class. There is hardly any online interaction between the students. The limited phone calls between friends are typically made wi...

  I first met her 17 years ago. Our parents had contacted each other after going through a newspaper advertisement in a matrimonial section. It was four years since I had completed my MBBS and had got into a well-paid government job. Apparently, these are the basic qualifications needed to earn the title of “eligible” bachelor in the matrimonial sections. Luckily, my future in – laws also agreed to this basic premise, and the two families, after a lot of meetings, decided that time was ripe for the “boy” and the “girl” to meet and approve each other. We met over some snacks and a bottle of cold drink, witnessed by two and half sets of families. I did not take any time to show my eager approval, and my future wife was too shocked at the turn of events for a negative response. We got married a year and half later, while she was still studying towards completing her graduation. Aadya came into existence a few months after my wife’s graduation, and Shaivi arrived in time to celeb...

                The monkey looked tentatively as I continued my walk.               For the past few days, I have been getting up early in the morning and been going out for my daily dose of sunshine. While I am frequently on my cycle, I had decided in favour of jogging this morning and had commenced my labored running. I am a moderately fit person who is somehow not used to too much of planned exercise. In fact, I hate exercise, and my morning activities were actually due to an official compulsion, which I had decided to take advantage of in order to improve my fitness. Monkeys lined up for their daily errand on my boundary wall               The route that I take is a favourite playground of a group of monkeys as well as at least seven different tribes of stray dogs, each with well de...