Before my blog self-destructs due to negligence...
Some of the stuff I've been writing for work. The more creative stuff will come soon. (hopefully)
Spot the Tumbletots kid
Confident, eager to play and make new friends – a new activity centre works on the seven skills of a child
They have them in Hong Kong, Manila, Jakarta, Bali, Germany, Britain and Singapore. And now Chennai has its own Tumbletots, just for kids. Programmes here – both entertaining and educational – are said to be such fun that kids in the city are jumping out of bed on Saturday mornings and dogging their parents’ footsteps till they’re taken to the centre on Lattice Bridge Road.
With programmes for children between 6 months and 7 years, Tumbletots promises to develop the core personality of your tiny tots, boosting their confidence, improving their motor skills, and helping them interact with new people. Baba, the centre manager, says that most parents who are regulars at the nine-month-old centre, say the same thing – ‘‘My child is very different.’’ When these kids spend their first day in kindergarten, they’re the ones running about, playing and trying to make new friends while the other kids would usually be bawling or clutching at their mothers’ pallus.
How does Tumbletots do this? Their sessions, twice a week, work on improving the seven skills of a child, including logical, linguistic, kinesthetic and other skills, using just exercises, activities and play. ‘‘Talking endlessly to such a young kid is pointless; a child understands best through play and experiences,’’ remarks Baba. Parents of the extremely young toddlers are taught to massage their kids, improve flexibility etc, and the young ones are given a free play session to learn through the sense of touch. The slightly older ones undergo personality development training as well. ‘‘It’s up to the age of seven that our personalities can be moulded and shaped,’’ says Baba. He explains how, through intense one-hour sessions, Tumbletots helps kids overcome stranger anxiety and cope with small losses.
Also, the bright yellow and red walls, interesting looking toys and mats are not there just so your kid can have fun (though that happens as well) – everything here has a purpose.
Save this:
New #48, LB Road
Thiruvanmiyur
64558687
Published: 23 November 2007, Indulge, The Indian Express
--
Look Hoo’s here
Encouraging kids to read more, Hippocampus has workshops almost every day
How many kids read books these days, what with their favourite cartoon on the telly all time long? Admit it, there’s nothing easier than handing your child a remote control, when he’s bored. Hippocampus, begun in Bangalore four years ago and in Chennai in 2005, is trying to change this trend. Books, they say, help develop language, speech, and vocabulary. And with over 8000 books on their shelves and in homes across the city, theirs is a venture that really promotes reading when kids are young. History, geography, mythology, Nancy Drew, Secret Seven… you name it, Hippo has them all. Giving your kids a book, reading them to sleep or just spending time with them over a book is time well spent, promises Hippocampus director Chandni Khanna.
Kids come to this centre in Abhiramapuram to play, read, interact, make new friends, and learn new things. From theatre, painting, arts and crafts to simple sessions with a journalist, Hippocampus also conducts various workshops. Kids and parents can look out for something brand new every three months – from storytelling sessions and carnivals to slideshows. And what’s more, you can borrow a couple of books after the workshop is over.
With the centre recently launching a few ‘‘Hoo’s corners’’ across the city – to bring books closer to you – this only gets more interesting. You could open up one in your home too. All you have to do is take a collection of books from Hippocampus and lend it out to members once or twice a week. These corners are to provide access to people who live in various parts of the city, from OMR to Velachery.
Workshops are open to members and non-members, though non-members have to pay for each workshop individually. There are various packages at Hippocampus – to borrow books, multimedia etc and participate in workshops. Membership ranges from Rs 200 to Rs 350 a month. At the workshop tomorrow, your kids can belt out carols at the top of their voices and unleash their artistic skills while decorating Xmas cakes, biscuits and cupcakes.
Save this:
1/E Subbaraya Iyer Avenue,
(off C P Ramsamy Road)
24661544
Published 14 December 2007, Indulge, The Indian Express
Monday, 14 January 2008
Tuesday, 4 September 2007
Chronicles of a journalist - The first article for which I got a by line =)
August 19th 2007, The Sunday Express
'Gifted'
Nikita Lalwani
Fiction
Penguin Books, Rs 395
Nikita Lalwani’s debut novel ‘Gifted’, traces the life of Rumi Vasi, Cardiff's mathematics prodigy from age 5 to age 15. Her empathetic novel has been short-listed for the Man Booker Prize of 2007. From Rumi's addiction to cumin seeds, her love of the number 512 to her self-consciousness and feeling for India, the author describes her fictional genius' every fleeting emotion in the novel.
To enter the mind of a child, let alone a child genius, is an extremely hard task, yet Lalwani has captured Rumi’s thoughts in vivid detail. Rumi finds solace in her number-crunching, but is terribly lonely as a child. "She felt her inferiority; the weight of her books and the clothes on her back seemed to deform her posture appropriately, forcing her to bend over like a true outcast..." She can accurately calculate that her probability of walking home with the popular John is 0.2142, but the probability that he maybe interested in her could be a negative digit. But it is not John, it is her equations with her family which form a major part of Lalwani’s novel.
We encounter Mahesh Vasi, Rumi’s father, in the very first chapter, pondering over something from his daughter’s exercise book. Something pricks him like “a tiny dental tool piercing soft gum”. Seemingly insignificant at first, the novel’s opening is quite telling encompassing most of Mahesh’s characteristics especially his ignorance regarding his daughter. Shreene who never stands up to her husband, is emotional and very unlike the logical and precise Mahesh. Despite this emotional side, she also cannot decipher her daughter .
Education plays an important role for Mahesh, a first generation immigrant. Living in his bubble of clear pros and cons, dos and don’ts, he is a hybrid – a victim as well as a villain. He wants his daughter to have the opportunities he never had, and aspires for Rumi to shine in her field.
And that is Rumi’s tragedy. Driven by her father, she leads a friendless existence. Working out problems in the library, fighting hunger and cold, she is forbidden to talk to anyone during these sessions. Her math skills however flourish and she joins Oxford at the tender age of 15 years, 3 months and 8 days and opens her eyes to a whole new world. More importantly, to a world where she can do as she pleases. Away from her tight study schedules and the hawk eyes of her parents, it is only a matter of time before she follows her heart.
Though comic in places, it is Rumi’s anguish which comes through clearly.. The novel is fast paced, drawing the readers into its inner depths.. Screaming bouts with Shreene, a thrashing from Mahesh, all leave Rumi scarred and lost, without anybody to lean on except her numbers. The conflicting values thrust on a child brought up outside of her country are painted clearly in various hues by Lalwani. Unable to comply with her parents’ wishes, yearning for a bond with someone, and without any friends of her own, she rings the emergency services to simply hear the voice of another.
Nikita Lalwani is of Indian origin, born in Rajasthan and raised in Cardiff, Wales, she has directed factual television and documentaries for the BBC. Weaving many post-colonial themes into the novel as well as delving deeply into the minds of her characters, especially her child genius, it is a novel of social as well as psychological relevance. Wonderful and poignant, it is a well-written, tight and an extremely evocative debut novel.
'Gifted'
Nikita Lalwani
Fiction
Penguin Books, Rs 395
Nikita Lalwani’s debut novel ‘Gifted’, traces the life of Rumi Vasi, Cardiff's mathematics prodigy from age 5 to age 15. Her empathetic novel has been short-listed for the Man Booker Prize of 2007. From Rumi's addiction to cumin seeds, her love of the number 512 to her self-consciousness and feeling for India, the author describes her fictional genius' every fleeting emotion in the novel.
To enter the mind of a child, let alone a child genius, is an extremely hard task, yet Lalwani has captured Rumi’s thoughts in vivid detail. Rumi finds solace in her number-crunching, but is terribly lonely as a child. "She felt her inferiority; the weight of her books and the clothes on her back seemed to deform her posture appropriately, forcing her to bend over like a true outcast..." She can accurately calculate that her probability of walking home with the popular John is 0.2142, but the probability that he maybe interested in her could be a negative digit. But it is not John, it is her equations with her family which form a major part of Lalwani’s novel.
We encounter Mahesh Vasi, Rumi’s father, in the very first chapter, pondering over something from his daughter’s exercise book. Something pricks him like “a tiny dental tool piercing soft gum”. Seemingly insignificant at first, the novel’s opening is quite telling encompassing most of Mahesh’s characteristics especially his ignorance regarding his daughter. Shreene who never stands up to her husband, is emotional and very unlike the logical and precise Mahesh. Despite this emotional side, she also cannot decipher her daughter .
Education plays an important role for Mahesh, a first generation immigrant. Living in his bubble of clear pros and cons, dos and don’ts, he is a hybrid – a victim as well as a villain. He wants his daughter to have the opportunities he never had, and aspires for Rumi to shine in her field.
And that is Rumi’s tragedy. Driven by her father, she leads a friendless existence. Working out problems in the library, fighting hunger and cold, she is forbidden to talk to anyone during these sessions. Her math skills however flourish and she joins Oxford at the tender age of 15 years, 3 months and 8 days and opens her eyes to a whole new world. More importantly, to a world where she can do as she pleases. Away from her tight study schedules and the hawk eyes of her parents, it is only a matter of time before she follows her heart.
Though comic in places, it is Rumi’s anguish which comes through clearly.. The novel is fast paced, drawing the readers into its inner depths.. Screaming bouts with Shreene, a thrashing from Mahesh, all leave Rumi scarred and lost, without anybody to lean on except her numbers. The conflicting values thrust on a child brought up outside of her country are painted clearly in various hues by Lalwani. Unable to comply with her parents’ wishes, yearning for a bond with someone, and without any friends of her own, she rings the emergency services to simply hear the voice of another.
Nikita Lalwani is of Indian origin, born in Rajasthan and raised in Cardiff, Wales, she has directed factual television and documentaries for the BBC. Weaving many post-colonial themes into the novel as well as delving deeply into the minds of her characters, especially her child genius, it is a novel of social as well as psychological relevance. Wonderful and poignant, it is a well-written, tight and an extremely evocative debut novel.
Some...
Who knows what people think,
Why some are nice while others stink,
Why they laugh, why they cry,
Why they smile and why they lie.
Do you know why some do both at the same time?
Why some illuminate lives while others are mere grime?
Why do some never accept the truth,
Tis hard, but that’s life, forsooth.
Why do some paint grey in others’ lives,
Use their daggers, stab deep with knives.
Keep your grey to yourself alone,
Someday about you all will be known.
They say what goes around comes around,
What was alive once, has to go deep underground.
They live in the hope that this is true,
They live with hope; it takes away the blue.
Hope can mislead, can lead to disappointment,
Will you risk hoping and wait for contentment?
Some brush it off – “C’est la vie,
People are mad, leave them be”.
They move on, forget the past,
It’s over, they don’t let the pain last.
They go home, eat, work and sleep well,
Above the grey people do their souls dwell.
Some lose bits of their colour, soul and spirit,
They weep inside trying not to let others know it.
Ouside it’s “C’est la vie, unaffected is me”,
Inside the hurt and rage twists; others cannot see.
Forgive not, forget-it-not, secret pain is the worst,
With steel exteriors, tender interiors, such people are cursed.
So which one are you, or which one do you want to be.
Who will you let inside, how many people will really see?
Love comes with its own terms and conditions,
Lovers lie, proclaim love, have a private list of sins.
Friends judge, want what you have; they also lie.
Sometimes you’ll wish they would all just die.
People, they come and they go, but you go on forever.
Malaise may remain.. but never become one of the grey. Never.
Why some are nice while others stink,
Why they laugh, why they cry,
Why they smile and why they lie.
Do you know why some do both at the same time?
Why some illuminate lives while others are mere grime?
Why do some never accept the truth,
Tis hard, but that’s life, forsooth.
Why do some paint grey in others’ lives,
Use their daggers, stab deep with knives.
Keep your grey to yourself alone,
Someday about you all will be known.
They say what goes around comes around,
What was alive once, has to go deep underground.
They live in the hope that this is true,
They live with hope; it takes away the blue.
Hope can mislead, can lead to disappointment,
Will you risk hoping and wait for contentment?
Some brush it off – “C’est la vie,
People are mad, leave them be”.
They move on, forget the past,
It’s over, they don’t let the pain last.
They go home, eat, work and sleep well,
Above the grey people do their souls dwell.
Some lose bits of their colour, soul and spirit,
They weep inside trying not to let others know it.
Ouside it’s “C’est la vie, unaffected is me”,
Inside the hurt and rage twists; others cannot see.
Forgive not, forget-it-not, secret pain is the worst,
With steel exteriors, tender interiors, such people are cursed.
So which one are you, or which one do you want to be.
Who will you let inside, how many people will really see?
Love comes with its own terms and conditions,
Lovers lie, proclaim love, have a private list of sins.
Friends judge, want what you have; they also lie.
Sometimes you’ll wish they would all just die.
People, they come and they go, but you go on forever.
Malaise may remain.. but never become one of the grey. Never.
Wednesday, 11 July 2007
Fantastic . . ?
Starring: Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, Julian McMahon, Kerry Washington, Andre Braugher, Laurence Fishburne (voice), Doug Jones, Beau Garrett, Brian Posehn, Zach Grenier, Kenneth Welsh, Patricia Harras, Gonzalo Menendez
Written by: Mark Frost, Don Payne, based on a story by Mark Frost, John Turman
Directed by: Tim Story
MPAA Rating: PG for sequences of action violence, some mild language and innuendo
Running Time: 92 minutes
The Fantastic Four : Rise of the Silver Surfer
It’s up to the spandex-clad Fantastic 4 to save our world. Ahem. I have to admit, I went to see the super visual effects and CG, but despite the cool visuals the movie was quite a let-down.
If the director was attempting to show the more human, less super-hero side of the Fantastics, he failed miserably. Glitz and glitter affect the soon-to-be-married couple, and the notorious playboy is having, or trying to have, an emotional crisis. The characters have plenty of potential for real humour, what with a sexy girl who can turn invisible and her brother who goes up in flames. But her lying naked in the middle of a New York street mumbling “Why does this always happen to me?”. Lazy, lazy. Oozing with unnecessary cheesy lines, the script would have been better off if it was written by my Labrador puppy.
Acting. What’s that? Jessica Alba’s blue contact lenses, peroxide hair and fabulous figure do not make up for her lack of acting skills. And that’s just one of the Fantastics.
Villains are supposed to be fun. Doom was far from it being simply unconvincing with a lot of messy lines. Forget clichéd, this is a cartoon meant for kids, it has to be clichéd. That doesn’t mean the same as nonsensical however. The ending, in addition to being a letdown, is nonsensical. A lot of what happens in the film, including the re-introduction of Dr. Doom, feels completely arbitrary.
The special effects will have many slack-jawed though, like the kid behind who loudly gasped “Woooow!” every once in a while. And the Silver Surfer is the only one in the movie who deserved to have his name in the title of the movie. In fact, it should have been called just ‘The Silver Surfer’. I found myself groaning because I knew he would sacrifice his life for the silly Sue (Jessica Alba).
If I didn’t like it, I can only imagine how cartoon lovers may have cringed or cried at the movie.
Written by: Mark Frost, Don Payne, based on a story by Mark Frost, John Turman
Directed by: Tim Story
MPAA Rating: PG for sequences of action violence, some mild language and innuendo
Running Time: 92 minutes
The Fantastic Four : Rise of the Silver Surfer
It’s up to the spandex-clad Fantastic 4 to save our world. Ahem. I have to admit, I went to see the super visual effects and CG, but despite the cool visuals the movie was quite a let-down.
If the director was attempting to show the more human, less super-hero side of the Fantastics, he failed miserably. Glitz and glitter affect the soon-to-be-married couple, and the notorious playboy is having, or trying to have, an emotional crisis. The characters have plenty of potential for real humour, what with a sexy girl who can turn invisible and her brother who goes up in flames. But her lying naked in the middle of a New York street mumbling “Why does this always happen to me?”. Lazy, lazy. Oozing with unnecessary cheesy lines, the script would have been better off if it was written by my Labrador puppy.
Acting. What’s that? Jessica Alba’s blue contact lenses, peroxide hair and fabulous figure do not make up for her lack of acting skills. And that’s just one of the Fantastics.
Villains are supposed to be fun. Doom was far from it being simply unconvincing with a lot of messy lines. Forget clichéd, this is a cartoon meant for kids, it has to be clichéd. That doesn’t mean the same as nonsensical however. The ending, in addition to being a letdown, is nonsensical. A lot of what happens in the film, including the re-introduction of Dr. Doom, feels completely arbitrary.
The special effects will have many slack-jawed though, like the kid behind who loudly gasped “Woooow!” every once in a while. And the Silver Surfer is the only one in the movie who deserved to have his name in the title of the movie. In fact, it should have been called just ‘The Silver Surfer’. I found myself groaning because I knew he would sacrifice his life for the silly Sue (Jessica Alba).
If I didn’t like it, I can only imagine how cartoon lovers may have cringed or cried at the movie.
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