Puttachi reads about herself

I'd put it off for too long, giving Puttachi parts of this blog to read.  But for a couple of days, S and I had been reading and enjoying a few of the early posts about her, and so today, I picked up this post and we sat together as I read it out to her.  She loved it - the joy and amusement in her eyes and smile was absolutely heartwarming. 

Not just that - She made a correction too.  I'd written in the post:

...... I started singing "Lambodara" too. [Lambodara lakumikara is the first composition taught to students of Carnatic music]. .......... [The second line is Ambaasuta Amaravinuta"]. She likes Ambaatuta and sings it all the time. My guess is that she thinks it is a song about cows, because "Ambaa" is her word for cows.

"No, Amma," she said today.  "I'm not sure about that age, but after I was older, I thought it was a song about you.  Amma-Amba.... "

So, I guess I'll have to start publishing an Errata section as she reads more posts about herself.

Another first

I like firsts.  Though I've had a Kannada article published in Sudha ages ago, this is the first time an article has been published in a glossy English magazine, complete with a picture of mine.

Check out the February issue of Complete Wellbeing magazine, for my parenting article, "Healthy Competition - an oxymoron?"

The article is not available online, I'm not sure if it will be, but I will let you know if it is.

Btw, this is the photo which inspired this post.


Edited to add:  The article is now online at this link.

Book reviews

I admire book reviewers.  How can they read a book, keep it aside, place themselves at a distance and write objectively (hopefully!)  about the pros and cons of the book and how it affected them?  My own experience with book reviews on my blog is to gush, haphazardly mentioning all that I liked about the book.  As for books I don't enjoy, I just don't talk about them. 

So, when Women's Web asked me to review a book, seeing that it was non-fiction (which I thought might enable me to be objective) and about the subject of CSA, on which I have written before, I agreed with alacrity, because I needed this experience - of writing an unbiased, structured review.  

Here is the review of The Bad Touch by Payal Shah Karwa.