Damn....was a second late on 10/10/10

Sign in a hotel close to my house

Not bad, huh?

When I got an email from the Lecturer of the Multimedia & Graphic Arts Department of the Cyprus University of Technology saying that the photograph I had taken of the Rock of Aphrodite, Cyprus, was selected for research and a possible publication I was thrilled to bits.
The photograph (one above) is part of the many I had put up on Picasa after my vacation to Cyprus in June 2009. The Cyprus University of Technology left a comment for me on Picasa, more than a year after the album was put up online and I signed the consent letter today.
For a photograph taken from a simple point and shoot camera the result is not bad, huh?

Bright-time or Night-time

Over the lunch table yesterday my colleague was telling me about her four-year old’s way of describing day and night. It’s so simple and uncomplicated - for her it’s either bright-time or night-time. That prompted me to pen down some other beautiful moments I have spent with children that have either left me spellbound or speechless.
Another friend’s three-year old daughter Neha, was showing me her storybooks and pointed to the picture of Billy Goat’s family – youngster, father and grandfather and said ‘That’s Appa Billy Goat, this is Amma Billy Goat and this is Neha Billy Goat’. How cute is that?
My little niece Aditi has always amazed us with her questions and comments. Once, she was irritating her mother with her continuous questions, and my sister grimaced, to which Aditi, then just three, asked ‘Mama why are you getting frustrated?’ And not too long ago their television set was not working and a very worried Aditi asked ‘Mama, is there a technical problem?’
And then there’s my three-year old nephew Mihir, who goes up to his mother and says ‘Mom, I have a terrific idea….’ When he was visiting us in Dubai he took to me instantly and was not so sure of my husband Aniket. So his way of addressing Aniket was ‘Kanchan Maama’ :)

I mean seriously...what is with her bathroom obsession?

And no wonder my plants look harassed when she is around.

Nugget

Little Nugget (my manager's kitten) is with us again, this time for more than ten days. She's grown and is still very naughty. She's taken a liking to all things linked to the bathroom, as is obvious from the pictures -

Holiday trivia

I'm waiting for the weekend to write about my vacation to the south of Germany and Amsterdam. But here is a quick post on some things I learnt while on vacation -

This is the symbol for a Toilet, so if you happen to be at a place that is old, chances are that this is what you should be looking for, if you are looking for the facilities. I saw this for the first time at an 17th century brewery and again at the Neuschwanstein castle.

While in Fussen I noticed a strange system of house numbering. Now the norm is to have all odd numbered houses on one side of the road and even numbered houses on the other side. This is done to make it simple for guests, courier delivery services and postal services to locate the house they need to be at.
But couldn't quite figure out why some houses were numbered 51/2, 91/2, 121/2. I saw this in Fussen only and so I wouldn't be surprised if there is a story behind it. Wonder what it is...

Another thing that caught my eye was this - 20*C+M+B*10. I found this written in chalk on the main door of most of the houses in Germany.

I was told that it is how the singers of a chorus keep track of the collections they have made for Christmas. 20 stands for the millenium. 10 stands for the year. C+M+B stands for the three kings - Caspar, Melchoir and Balthasar, who went in search of Lord Jesus on the day he was born. Now since orthodox Chrsitians (followers of the Julian calendar) celebrate Christmas on January 7th, the collections for this year were made and Christmas already celebrated.

A fat me

Back to work today after a lovely vacation. Ate lots and not surprisingly have put on oodles of weight and look like this -

OK, that's not entirely true. This image has been generated by the Fatbooth Application on the iPhone. A colleague has bought the iPhone recently and cannot stop playing with his new toy.

I must put this picture someplace where I can see it everyday to remind me of the consequences of over-eating and lack of exercise....

Last few minutes of my birthday....

So yet another birthday, yet another year and yet another beginning. Just another ten minutes to go before my birthday ends, as per the time zone in Germany. It has been a great birthday spent with my sister and brother-in-law and of course the good old husband. My sister's in-laws baked me a cake and they made up for the absence of my parents here. Photos will be added on soon.
I'm writing this post in a slightly intoxicated state so you must pardon the exagerrated sentiments, but this is a great moment to thank everyone for just being there. Ever since I have got Feedjit installed on my blog I know who visits it. Thank you to everyone for stopping by. Must admit that there have been moments when I thought I was the only person reading what I wrote. A special thank you to the person following my blog from Los Gatos, California. Thank you. I would love to know more about you. I am planning a visit to California in April and cannot wait for that vacation!

A silent killer is on the prowl

I leave for Germany day after tomorrow to attend my sister’s wedding there. I was in Germany last in July 2006 and had stayed for a couple of days in the beautiful city of Dresden with Lorna Lindner. Mrs. Lindner, as I called her, was my landlady in Mumbai. My dear friend Anu and I stayed in her spacious 1 BHK in Andheri East which we had rented from her. I was there from 2003 till I got married in 2006 and my friend Anu continues to stay there till today. Mrs. Lindner is a Manglorean, grown up in Mumbai and married to a German – Gerhardt Lindner. She was in Dresden, Germany for almost 20 years. She was in her early sixties and an extremely active lady with an excellent green thumb. She used to visit Mumbai every 2 years or so. As a landlady she was strict but also generous and our rent was always considerably lesser than prevailing rates in the expensive suburb of Andheri – a discount she had given us keeping in mind the fact that we were both single and fending for ourselves in Mumbai.

I wrote to Mrs. Lindner on Thursday to inform her about my trip to Germany. I wanted her phone number since I thought I’d catch up with her on phone since meeting her this time seemed difficult. The next day I got an email from her son Franz saying that his mother was in hospital, suffering from cancer and the doctors said that she would pass away in the next few days. He asked me to pray for her. The mail was so shocking and I was just about coming to terms with it when I got a call from Anu saying that Mrs. Lindner had died on Friday morning, maybe around the same time that I read the email from her son. I was in a daze for the next few hours thinking of the wonderful time Anu and I had with Mrs. Lindner when she visited us in Mumbai. We used to catch up almost every night, drink tea in our living room with us telling her about life in the media in Mumbai and her urging us to meet more people so that one day we would find someone to settle down with. The fact that both of us were unmarried was almost as much as a worry to her as it must have been for our respective parents. I remembered the time I spent with her in her cozy home in Dresden and how just less than a year ago Gerhardt and Franz had visited me in Dubai and I had sent a whole lot of stuff (mainly mangoes and marmite) for Mrs. Lindner.

She was in Mumbai earlier this year – from January to March and when she went back in April she learnt that she had stomach cancer. She lost her battle to cancer in just three months. What a shock it must have been to her family. Franz is only about 20 now. I am not looking forward to the phone call I will be making to Franz in the next week.

I am also alarmed at the number of people I know who have died of cancer recently. Just on the 20th of June I lost my uncle (father’s sister’s husband) to lung cancer. My aunt, his wife, died two years ago of stomach cancer. A neighbours’ boss’s wife is dying of cancer. Another friend lost her mother to cancer earlier this year.

No wonder Cancer is known as a silent killer.