My Seeds are my Root!

This is blog is dedicated to both Nilaa and Oviyaa and from both Leela and I. The below write up was kind of our first on Nilaa who was the star of the week in her school. And while we were drafting this, I realized that these kids are the inspiration behind the wild run that am making along with Leela. In today's world, when there is a sacrifice made, we expect that to be recognized. But our kids make a lot of sacrifices without even realizing that they do and yet do not complain on the short of recognition. Without dragging too much below was our account on Nilaa as much as possible. This stems my view on what we leave in our child is more important that what we leave for them! 

- Raj.

Nilaa, the Moon!

Thanks for this opportunity to write about Nilaa, which we have not had it before in our lives!

Right from the birth, she has always been very active and can’t stay idle in a place for more than 2 minutes. To get her to be tired used to be our daily goal at one point in time! It used to be really funny to bathe her, tough to feed her and getting her to bed to make her sleep as always been a tiresome exercise for her mom. However, over the years, she has transformed herself into an independent lady and now does these things all by herself, though sometimes slow. But, rewards and recognition works well with her to get a job done!

She loves to get to her school always. The only complaint that she had about schools was that she misses schools during our transition phases. She probably has a uniqueness in having attended many schools at Chennai and Erode in India, Derby in the UK and now here in Plano, the US!

She just loves being outside of the house wherever it was. Be it in India, in the UK or now in the US, she just wants to head out to the park to ride a bicycle or play with her friends that she had made all by herself in a very short duration. We have seen that she gets into a leadership role quickly and the team responds to her positively! In sports, she wants to be a basketball player.

She loves her family pretty much and are fond of her aunts and cousins. She absolutely adores and takes care of her little sister Oviyaa. Both these girls now have a separate room for themselves and Nilaa takes care of the younger one during the nights! Oviyaa is yet to get to a play school, but Nilaa ensures that she does not miss that. We often get to visualize her class teachers in her mono acts as teaches her little sister, teaching good things in life.

Nilaa is a very good listener, but often pays attention only to things that matters or interests her. She likes to be surprised every now and then. Last summer, exactly during the same week, we made a trip to India from the UK and we kept it as a surprise! She did not realize that she is in India, until we got out of the airport and met with her uncles and aunts awaiting to receive us. She simply loved it.

As with every child and every respective parents, Nilaa being our first child is the meaning of our lives. There are a lot of things and emotions that she gave us for the first time and continues to give us every single day.

More than anything, what we adore about her is the way she has inspired us to embrace changes in life. In the name of opportunity to us, we have challenged her by putting her in different schools, across cities, countries and continents! Yet, she neither complained nor was she bogged down. She had adapted to every environment very seamlessly without ever needing us to help her in transitions. In fact, she had shown us, the parents, that all these challenges are opportunities to explore and learn new things in life. An Inspiration!

True to the meaning of her name, she guides us as a light in our lives! Nilaa is a star to your class and a moon to us. Nilaa literally means moon in our mother tongue Thamizh!

Just to end it on a lighter note, we chose her name over a carom board game!

We love her as our life and are sure Gulledge will take good care of her. Thanks for having her part of this institution and all the best to everyone at Gulledge!

- Leela and Raj

Can't find a name for this Write Up!

For once am going to keep it short because whatever more I say may dilute what I intend to say!

I watched this unfortunate clip and wanted to express my sadness on the sorry state of affairs and my desperation for a change in the system.

I cannot blame these individuals and it is in fact unfair that she/he are on this clip. There is nothing funny about this clip, but rather something serious that India needs to consider for itself to even think it can be a force to reckon with. Education is not just a right, but it has to be right as well! We need right teachers and trainers. Pull in every scholar/leader in the country, from APJ to Narayana Murthy, they would fondly remember about at least one teacher who made a difference to them. We need to change!

I'm glad that I was built and trained by a great set of teachers from the best school ever and a great college. But not all is so fortunate like me and my friends. Almost 70% (I might be wrong) of the country's kids are built by people like her! And with this if India can achieve what we have achieved so far, imagine what would be our strength if the system corrected itself by just another 20%!

Not sure how we could take the message to the powers to be and I wish if not through this blog at least somehow they understand what needs to be done!

Again.. I'm sorry for these individuals on the clip and I would call her the flag bearer for change than a scape goat!

- Raj

PS.: If this video violates any copyright, please write to me I shall delete it.

What do we leave in Children?

A few days back, I was having an interesting email conversation with my friend a senior colleague on what level of Morality we tend to have and what we expect from others. While that topic (which is something he wrote on) is not what I want to discuss in this, the below is what was a spun off topic on what we do Children these days in terms of our expectations and how well we as parents or family or society give them Moral Education..

Like what I keep saying, our whole system starting from education has been spoilt. We used to have something called moral science in our generation, we used to have grandparents teaching morals to us, but these are now a luxury. In fact, I can blame it only on the parents of this generation for this as, we seem to accept things as is and we do not want to fight it. We think it is not our fight and let this immorality become the norm for our children.

I was in a How to be better parenting presentation few days back and the trainer asked the audience what each one of us was our child to be. The trainer asked me only as the last person, “Raj what do you want your daughter to be?”. True to myself, I said, I want them to be good human beings with right morals, fighting attitude, mental and physical fitness and nice social awareness with excellent self-esteem. Interestingly, none of the parents were near to what I wanted.

Coming back to the point, the point is Moral values are getting lost in India and thanks to parents & society and the need of the hour is each of us need to go back to the roots. In that session, all parents (not that I blame them) wanted their children to be scientist, doctor, IAS etc.,. forgetting about being Human Beings. We are being pressured by our peers and worse by the peers of our children too.

Not that I claim I’m best parent, but that is what I tell my daughters every single day like a slogan. Be patient, be honest, be brave, be calm, be tolerant, be respectful and so on (at least 25 as much as I could think of). Even then, I feel am not close to what I want to instill in their thoughts. I do often get scared that when they become like what I say, they will be odd ladies out, but then at least am trying.

What I leave for them is not significant, what I leave in them is very important.

Now whether or not am right or if it would be good for my daughters, is for the time to judge. But then, I feel am nurturing my seeds in the right way and in a responsible way too. Am a firm believer that honesty and hard work pay, though at times it is a very difficult choice, but I feel am content and can sleep very well at nights.

I know there are many other different (and better) ways of doing it, but then one cannot master all!

- Raj