Mana Shah - Facilitator

The last two months have been quite exciting indeed. I now have much more control over my arms, fingers and thumb, with the effect that I can not just grasp but also pick up things, move things from one hand to another, and my favourite pastime…the TASTE test! I am so flexible now that I can even put my toe in my mouthJ And I can role from tummy to back and vice versa. Hold on Mom Dad I am not going to be a gymnist :P  I need some help to sit up, but once I am up, I can manage to be up for upto 15-20 minutes. I am trying to learn how to balance myself so I need to be surrounded by some pillows, so cushy and comfy! The world looks so different now. I can see other people eye to eye and play with all sorts of toys. When I wake up in the mornings I love going to the balcony and watching all sorts of vehicles from a bicycle, motor bike, cars, trucks, airplanes (yes I can hear that far, surprised huh?). I love classical the most as that was played in m...

The second two months of my life had ups and downs. I slowly begin to realise that this is life! Playtime became more and more fun. There are many more things to see  other than the ceiling and the fan and my cot mobile!!!! I discovered the fun tunnel gym which my Jyot Kaki sent. I could see myself in a mirror (at first I thought that was another baby, and then I realised, hey that's just me, someday I would have to understand how that works!), kick this cool ball and shake different types of rattles. My cool swing was fun too, at first I was baffled at how it could move on its own! Thanks Rohi and Nidhi Masi for your thinking and foresight and getting this swing three years ahead of my time:) The wonderful thing called motor and batteries! It makes many more things move in this world, apparently! The best was how I scared shankar mama with artificial cries and poo poo:P I finally started going somewhere besides the hospital! I started with the park in my p...

Hello, I am Ayan! On the occasion of my half year birthday, I thought maybe it is a good moment to capture my life's story so far. I was born in Delhi, the city of extreme weathers. From the thunder and rain on the day of my arrival to the chilly winter winds and now the sweltering summer. My mom's belly was very consistent weather wise, so getting used to this will take some time:) Fortunately for me, my nana chose the best possible place for me to be born and aside from my mom's deafening screams it was a great welcome in the world. From my happy doctor to friendly nurses who cuddled and cleaned me up to the yummy first milk I got to eat (they must have fed my mom really well!). My pa held a small baby like me for the first time but it sure did not feel that way! My loud moni masi is also hard to forget. She was there in my early days and i crown her the unbeatable burping queen ! She knew just when to pick me up and make me feel better:) Rohi masi ...

Tv channels with sub titles (so you can catch up on all favourite shows without disturbing the baby) Smart phone with headphones (so you can catch up on news, movie releases, listen to interesting talks, your personal email, fb + listen to radio + remember imp dates + do your banking + online shopping + plan holidays + lots of baby apps to make you feel less guilty :) Feeding time adds up to about four hours in twenty four. Unless you have innate ability to be in a state of relaxed sleep (enough to feel rested but not deep enough that you dose off and wake up surprised to see a bundle in your arms) which I never did, such devices are a super blessing. Older window ac loud enough to drown out outside noises (dogs, vehicles, fruit wallah) or inside noises like your partners snoring:p Cute paediatrician that makes you look forward to the routine doc visits

Ayan will be six months in a couple of weeks! How time just flew! It seems that I had just found out I was pregnant, that I had just gotten admitted to the hospital and that he had just come into the world at the bellowing of the thunder and rain. First things first! I managed a natural birth WITHOUT an epidural! Those who know me know what a low threshhold of pain I have. So ladies, if I can do it, ANYONE can! Of course, I could have punched my doctor to continue to poke me even after Ayan was born and it is ironic how someone telling you to breathe can make you want to kill yourself:P I remember asking the doctors where my pain relief was and they kept stalling. The funniest was Parth asking me, "should I ask them to do an operation?" In hindsight I am happy that I did not take it, it just exponentially increases your desperation in pushing the baby out! Here is what else helped: some months of yoga, knowing what is happening to me, constant supply of glucose water, s...

Observing babies can tell a lot about our own evolution, says Desmond Morris in his fascinating book, Babywatching . How babies behave also shed light on how we behave and communicate as adults. Morris does an excellent job of digging out behavioral research studies, roots of our common traditions, and links many of our instinctual acts to our former avtars-primates! The book attempts to answer specific questions from how do babies enter the world, why do they cry at birth, what makes them smile, how well can a mother recognise her own baby, do men and women react to babies in the same way etc etc? I share some of most interesting answers. Some answers seem too incredible to directly attribute the effect to that cause, but he does make a rational argument! Babies cry at birth because we have significantly altered the way they have historically entered the world. From being born at home surrounded by family, in a vertical position and cuddled immediately by the mother, babies now are d...

One of the most difficult things for us so far in these nine months (besides of course the leg cramps, heartburns and advice from multiple fronts:P) is deciding on a baby name (well two since gender will be a big surprise)! We of course started with what criteria it should ideally fulfill. First, it should have some meaning , something that signifies our way of life and living, that connects with who we are as people. Second, should be unique, something different, something that creates this "aha" response for us everytime we say the name and for the child when she/ he says the name. Parth's benchmark for uniqueness has been that we should be able to get the domain with the full name:P. Third, should follow the KISS principle ! Keep in short and simple:) No more than two syllables, no scope for annoying petnames that haunt you for the rest of your life and not open to any mispronunciations! Fourth, it should role beautifully and naturally on the tongue , like a musical t...

Children do not listen, they model! One of the many interesting insights in Happy Child Guide by Dr. Blaise Ryan and Ashley Olivia Ryan. (Thanks Iris for sharing this!) The book lists seven simple ways to transform misbehaviour to great behaviour! What made it interesting for Parth and me was how the strategies in the book were very different (sometimes even opposite) from what we had seen being used by parents around us. But the authors have been practicing this with their child and seen results. They admit that all the crying and tantrums did not completely stop, but they have reduced substantially. The key message according to the authors is for parents to understand how to respond to the child's behaviour and instill the principles of connection, trust and respect so that the child listens and cooperates naturally. They see two ways of influencing a child: one is to develop skills that help us respond to her needs and behaviours (internal) and second is to develop lifestyle ha...

My friends and family had been planning my Baby Shower for a month now and by chance I happen to come to know:) It was a good thing for me but not so for them. My nosy and skeptic self crept in much to their chagrin, but they love me for better or worse, right? But on the D day, which was yesterday, I chose not to butt in and stayed away from all the hustle bustle at my parents house, a very wise decision indeed. When I walked in the house all ready, it just looked so beautiful! All the lovely decorations, the silver strings, the all time favourite colourful streamers, yellow gende ke phool and white carnations, the variety of shapes stuck to the walls, the hanging octopus (unique idea for a stuffed animal!), my photo collage (which my Mom meticulously made many years back and I just love looking at again and again!) and last but not the least Parth and Jyot Bhabhi's unusual diaper cake (yes a cake made with actual diapers!). Nidh had fulfilled her task of making the place light up...

When we heard of our friends looking for play schools for their children, we kept hearing the "M" word quite often. That led Parth to buy us, " How to raise an amazing child: The Montessori Way " by Tim Seldin. It is a fascinating read more so because of its interesting origins and its liberal undertones. Maria Montessori , born in Italy in 1870, became the first Italian woman to become a physician. In her work with free clinics, she came across many children of the poor. Through her work she became convinced that every child had an amazing potential and all they needed was the right stimulation and environment to bloom in. To prove her point, she took over management of a day care centre in one of Rome's worst slums. The children were rowdy, irresponsible and very difficult to deal with. She delegated various day care management tasks to the older children, like helping with the cleaning, serving meals etc. And her techniques made them independent, responsible...

One of the many things Parth and I have in common is how we deal with something new that has to be done. To us it seems akin to any other project we would be taking up. So it was not a surprise when we heard the big news, how we would start work on....Project Baby Shah!!! Step 1: Internal and external SWOT Logical beings as we are, we first thought a lot about what strengths we have as parents and what weaknesses can make our tasks difficult! This was somewhat doable as we both had some experience in handling nieces and nephews. Step 2: Vision Next came the big VISION questions to which we were quite stumped actually = what kind of parents do we want to be? what values do we want to instill in our child? So came the next step! Step 3: Background research What do we as a species understand about babies, children? What influences their behaviour? How do they learn? How do we balance being permissive and authoritative? How do parents help them become happy, independent, responsible, r...

Usually it takes me atleast a few days if not weeks to complete a book. But this one, took just a day. Disclaimer: I am a firm believer and follower of checklists and todos to the point that my memory is completely handicapped without one! So when I picked up Atul Gawande's The Checklist Manifesto , I was pretty sure that I would understand his logic and reason for dedicating a whole book to a mundane thing as a checklist. His book demonstrates the successes in terms of life-saving, effectiveness and efficiency across professions from those in which split second decisions can decide the fate of someone's life and time is a luxury to others where one can spend as much time as needed to create perfection. Medicine, aviation and disaster relief to architecture and construction, restuaurant business, music industry.... How does one build a 100-storey building without accident or how does one produce 300 mouth watering perfect dishes in four hours or how does one assure safety of...

Despite all the pleasures of seeing new sites, one annoyance that I least look forward to is the rush of tourist guides that surround and hound you. Usually these would be young dudes who claim to show you all the sites at a very enticing price. Recently at Jaipur, we were also approached by "government approved" tourist guides with even a proper name tag. The dilemma facing the average Indian tourist seems quite serious: do you choose the government guide who has a fixed charge or you choose the unlicensed young dude at sometimes even half the price? If you look at the service that these guides provide, its basically history of the particular monument and if you are lucky some additional stories as a value addition! The guides also differentiates their service as per language, we could hear guides rattling off Japanese, Spanish, German...you name it. A new competitor on the scene-the audio guide-is also giving taking away some (not that much as audio guides are largely prefe...

A personal story of a family whose mother is a nurse, dilemmas and desires of three youngsters in the reform era, journeys of young women in search of brighter futures from Chattisgarh, Orissa to Delhi and the anguish suffered by them and their families, visual wonders of Titanic and Gabber Singh in Assamese of the 40 year old mobile theatre of Assam whose 120 member troupe performs for nine months straight moving from over 70 locations, mesmerising sounds of Rukma-the lone female Mangadia singer in Rajasthan, and to round it off a discussion with budding documentary makers on reality and the medium. That was my afternoon at this year's Jeevika. There is so much I do not know about India. In the discussion with filmmakers, Nandan-the moderator's question "what is a documentary?" offered different responses. It offers perspectives on everyday issues and happenings, it helps us discover new ones. It is a reflection of the filmmaker's conscience. It is a subjective p...

It so happened that our 9th anniversary clashed with a joint CCS-FNF programme with journalists in Patna. I was excited about visiting a new city and thanks to our dear friends Rajesh and Amit, we had a lovely anniversary celebration with cakes (yes we got two!), wine (which Rajesh went all over town to find!), litti (Bihari dish), breezy weather, and conversations on Bihari politics! Bihar has a fascinating mix of history-Gautam Buddha attaining enlightment at Bodhgaya, Mahavir spending a lot of time here, Chandragupta Maurya building a vast empire, Ashoka ruled from Patliputra, now Patna. The famous Patna museum was established in 1917 houses stone sculptures and statues. As we travelled across the city, old British clubs are quite visible. We had dinner in the gardens with palm trees along side the river at one such club-Bankipore, established in 1865! There are many sites to explore out of Patna-Nalanda, Bodhgaya, Vaishali. Alas, this trip was too short! We entered Patna town ...

These are the proud art works of my darling 3.5 year old nephew! He is quite spontaneous with his art tools and fervently produces these marvelous creations!

I have earned a bad reputation in my office for asking the annoying question-so what were your highs and lows on x, y/ z? I think today I can subject myself to this question. I am trying to make sense of what I feel about "India", not just today, but anyday. That is itself a difficult question to answer, since India is a land of mutliple realities. My German colleague gets quite annoyed whenever she asks us a question about India, in a typical Indian fashion, we answer indefinitively, this is also true, on the other hand, so is that.... My highs about India: My former boss once asked me what gives us optimism when all he can see around him goes against any ray of hope. My answer instinctively was-its people! I see my heroes and hope everyday: the street seller who was desperate to sell me a wet newspaper in the drenching rain, the cycle rickshaw puller who was pulling well-endowed and well-fed fellow citizens, the fruit and vegetable vendor who lugs his cart in my colony call...

Note: I was going so crazy recently about wanting a decent hair cut once and for all, that I thought penning down my mumbling mind may give it some rest! When does one really become conscious of one's hair? How the look and feel of hair affect our lives and how do our lives in term affect our hair? When I was in school, I had to sit out for the ritualistic oil massage, brading into a plat, making two pigtales or a ponytail for school. I did not much of a say in the inputs into my hair nor the output of how my hair would finally look like. Ironically, that was the time I think my hair in terms of quality was at its best. At some point, peer pressure and the mirror started taking over which never really go away. I think, hmmm, how does my hair affect how I look? How I am perceived? Does it make me look older? Does it make me look well-kept? Does it match with the clothes I am wearing? Does it match with my face?....The constant need to whisk out my brush. Oh if there is one emergency...

The roads across Ladakh are laiden with eye-catching and witty signs. A sample of what we saw over and over again... "Drive fast. Test my recovery." "I like you. But not so fast." "Better Mr. Late than Late Mr." "If you are married, divorce speed." "After whiskey, driving risky." "I am curveceous, be slow." ----My favourite! "Don't gossip, let him drive." "Safety on road is safe tea at home." On googling, I found many travelers have captured these. Ajay Jain has a book " Peep, Peep, Don't Sleep " on interesting road signs and ADs across India! And I thought I had the divine idea of a coffee table book:(

One unique thing about Vinod's " Journeys with Meaning " are visits to civil society organisations working in Ladakh on disability, promoting Ladakhi culture, encouraging debate on the effects of globalisation and integration with the world. On our first day in Leh, we made a visit to one such organisation-the Women's Alliance of Ladakh (WAL), http://womenallianceladakh.org/. "The Women’s Alliance of Ladakh was set up in 1991 with the twin goals of raising the status of rural women and to strengthen local culture and agriculture. Since its inception the WAL membership was swelled to over 5000 women belonging to over 100 villages from all areas of Ladakh." WAL was set up by ISEC (International Society for Ecology and Culture). Helena Norberg Hodge set up ISEC to "promote locally based alternatives to the global consumer culture". ISEC organises regular documentary screenings at Women's Alliance office (a mention in the Lonely Planet brings in ...