What a whirlwind of a day. Was loaded with work today, the site meeting took much more than expected one hour and I came back and cooked Chicken Muglai. Office staff surprised me by wishing early morning and we had a lunch party. Quiet enjoyable -its been ages since I cut a cake.
Going out for dinner with Jaimesh and Family -the kids (his two and our one and only ) are excited and we are hoping to have a great time.
“What a damp squib!” is the most heard line since yesterday’s announcement of the Union Budget.
Personally I feel, the budget was as apolitical as it can get and that is commendable considering this being the election year. What FM did was more or less expected. It did not give anything to the stock market, neither did it take anything away from it – the indices have been rising for a while and the sudden fall can be attributed to technical corrections which would have happened with or without a reason. In-fact, one can already see an upswing happening today.
The budget was agriculture and tourism friendly, but hard on IT industry with implication of MAT of 11.33%. However the MAT affects only those companies who have been enjoying a tax holiday so far and were hoping to enjoy it for one more year. For a company like SANIsoft which got minimmal sops of being an IT company (for various reasons), getting all IT companies to pay tax makes it a level playing field. However, a small hike in outsourcing costs can not be ruled out.
On the employee front, things could have been worse, and FBT on ESOPs was coming anyways. Companies and Coporates never suffer, so the burden of FBT is going to be passed on to the employees, affecting their net income.
On the negative side, a Rs 1000 relief to is in fact going to cost more to the assesses considering the 1% hike in education cess. Real Estate is going to be hit with hike in cement prices as even they are going to pass their burden of excess excise duty to the consumers. However, these are some things that a growing economy has to bear as cost of growth. Indian Economy has never been better and the country can take some mature financial planning in its stride.
Yesterday night Aasim got very bored, we were watching some movie on TV and he was playing in his room.
After a while he comes to our bedroom galloping a white paper mask covering his eyes, a white scarf on his head, white gloves in hand and announces, “here comes the white Zorro!”
We spent about 45 mins sitting in the balcony of my parents bedroom of the new house and totally loved it. The view of the lake, cool breeze blowing on a hot day and loads of birds to watch. We also saw a Besra on the way to the site, and spotted an Osprey early morning at Telenkhedi lake (futala talao)
My asthma seems to be better today, Homeopathy works, but it takes its own time. Otherwise the day was busy and I still have several things that need to be looked into.
My cough/throat/sneezes/breathlessness/restlessness are back with a vengeance. Thankfully Wheezing is a little less but constant coughing is irritating the throat making me cough more.
Called my homeopath and she says give rest to the throat but no such luck am loaded with all kinds of stuff that need my vocal cords to be used all the time. With vendors continuously coming in with updates etc, absent house staff and Aasim’s fourth assessment going on, I just cant keep quiet. And now since I am not speaking since about 30 mins, all this keeping quiet is getting me depressed.
The cable is layed. Now for the connections.
Stone on the outside wall is set, by tomorrow the granite on the stairs will be in place.
78 days remaining.
Day before y’day I was speaking with my neighbour yogeshpatel about my rarely having problems sleeping at night, and that very night I could not take a wink after 0030 hrs thanks to the “Return of the Asthamatic Attack” after almost three years. I did not have my inhaler handy, and the homeopathy SOS did not work. It was perhaps the worst of my asthama attack, I was wheezing for almost 12 hours and just could not lie down.
Today seems much better, I still have cough, itchy nose and rhinitis, but all of it seems under control.
In another news, Aasim scored extremely well in his first ASSET exam He is over 90% in the subjects he took the tests in (English, Maths and Science) which is good, however he still needs to work a lot the silly mistakes he makes.
On 8th Of February, 2007, Aasim gave an exam for his Karate Orange belt and passed it.
The very next day, on 9th February, he had to appear for an entrance test for class IV at “The Jain International School (TJIS) Nagpur, which he passed in flying colours scoring 85% in the written test. He even gave an impressive one to one interview to the School Principal who asked him questions like ”Tell me about yourself“ and ” what are the criterion’s on which you decide who is your friend“ The boy spoke of things we did not know he could understand, let alone make his judgments on them – one of the things he listed as an answer to the second question by the principal was -”personality“ and even went on to explain it. The interview was tough, but Aasim came out of it impressively resulting into his getting admission at TJIS, Nagpur.
On 10th February, he did his first Karate Camp -a three day camp at Fun and Food Village, about 30 kms from the city, A first overnight camp for Aasim and a tough camp for all karatekas -it was meant to teach the basic tenets of Karate, discipline and self control. The boy came back stronger but extremely tired and totally tanned (thanks to the water park where they enjoyed during their off time from training).
Life since then has been been back to normal, he keeps talking of things like ” I have my rights too“ but then those are perhaps his pre-teen harmones kicking in.
From one of the horror-scope columns today.
Gawd!!
Children being what they are, we cannot stop them from exploring, moving about and around because it is this exploration of surroundings that contributes to their learning and leading a successful adult life – we are all but animals in the jungle. However, what worries me no end as a parent are the wolves that are hounding our children and us – these are the predators from whom we have to save our children and make them survive.
The recent Nithari case is not that happens only once or for that matter happens only in some Delhi suburb, the abduction of Adobe CEO’s son, is not something that happens to “other people”. All of us, even in the smallest of towns, as parents and teachers, need to keep our eyes open, our ears within reach so that we can see and hear that cry of help from our children.
More and more children today are being looked after by hired help, thanks to our busy lifestyle, more often that not, we are just happy that we got a help and don’t bother to check the background of the help. It is not that every household help is to be looked with suspicion, but we have to learn to find the ones that lurk behind the mask of a “simple servant” –a maid, a boy help that comes to your house for household chores, a milk man, an autowallah – all these people spend some time with our children. Children get friendly with them and trust them because as parents, you have entrusted them with your children, This makes their task very easy if they want to take advantage of the situation and molest, abduct or even kill your child. There are enough people around us with twisted mentalities and sadly the number seems to be growing.
Nagpur has been a quiet city for a long time, it is now turning around with more malls, more companies and more people coming in the city for various purposes. It has ceased to be a city where everyone knew everyone else.
It will pay for us to be paranoid, to educate our children and teach them self defence methods, to teach them the difference between a good touch and a bad touch –and not just to young girls, but to young boys as well. To make them understand whom to trust and who not to trust, to make them aware and educate them that things can go wrong, tell them to keep in touch with the family for their own safety. Little tips that can save them from getting into danger and most of all trust them to trust you and tell you things that happen to them outside the secure boundaries of your home.
It is never to early to tell your child all this. Remember, if he is old enough to be left with an autowallah to go to school, he is old enough to be taught how to save himself. It pays to be paranoid, it pays to be safe.
— Swati Sani
24th January 2007
