Day 19 - Lassen Volcanic National Park

Yes, we're still on that vacation, and if you've noticed, a lot of these places have something to do with volcanic activity. Coincidence. Lassen is another such place, and once again, I'd never seen anything like it before.

Manzanita Lake

A very climb-friendly tree. Puttachi went up quite high.

Had a hearty lunch of packed sandwiches and Trader Joe's salad near this place.

Happened upon patches of snow that hadn't melted since winter. So much fun playing with snow on a summer day. There was enough snow to slide down, in some places. Great delight!

This is Bumpass' Hell. Bumpass is a name, and hell - because of the sulphuric ponds. The place was full of sulphur vapours, and it was not very comfortable to hang around there for too long. 

Another view of Bumpass' Hell. Taken from the walkway you can see in the previous pic. Look at that blue pond, and those hissing vapours.

This is on the hike to Bumpass' Hell - which was great - just the right challenge level, adventurous, dangerous, picturesque. Those two peaks in the mountain was actually one mountain. It blew (volcano) and half of the mountain was ripped off. So if you join the dots (so to say) between the two peaks, that was the original mountain.

There are several mudpots in the area. Basically a pool of bubbling mud, due to gases from underground that escape through these pools of mud. It is like watching a liquid bubble and boil in a huge pot.

More about this vacation

Day 18 - Sundial Bridge and Turtle Bay Exploration Park

Considering that I hadn't even heard of a place called Redding before we planned this trip, I was not expecting to see this fabulous park and even more spectacular bridge in this place.

The Sundial Bridge - a cable-stayed bridge (pulls the bridge up to keep it in place.)

Seen from the bottom - quite spectacular.

The bridge is across the Sacramento River

The park itself is beautiful, lots of botanical specimens, and a good place to walk, talk, sit, spend an evening.

A little library, you're free to read books from here and return it. If you want to take a book for yourself, you must replace it with a book of your own.

And of course the kids wanted to read (even though the books were far below her reading level - books are books, and should be read, you see)

We came back to the park two times, once at night, after a leisurely dinner at the vacation rental. We walked under the Sundial bridge this time, and it so happened that the latest Pokémon had just been released that day. We didn't know it, but we saw these massive groups of teenagers gathered there, 10 pm at night, intently looking at their phones. We only understood later on what was happening and we tried to catch some Pokémon too (I hope I've said that right, I'm hopelessly behind the times.)

Anyway, the bridge looked quite beautiful lit at night, viewed from underneath it.

More about this vacation

Day 17 - Shasta Caverns, Lake and Dam

Shasta Caverns are massive caves made entirely of limestone, and there are stalactites, stalagmites and a host of other formations. It is like a fantasy land, and the limestone formations look like all kinds of creatures, both real and fanciful and mythological. It is like Alladin's cave of wonders, and walking through it feels unreal.

To reach the caverns, we had to take a ferry across the scenic lake Shasta.

Across the lake, buses drove us uphill to the mouth of the caverns. My photographs don't do justice, because my camera is not good enough for photos in the dark, but here are a few just for you to get a feel.

The Cathedral Cave. It is at least 4 floors high, I think

We stepped out back into sunlight, and had this panoramic view of the lake from above.

Lake Shasta

And from the point where I took the above photo, I looked back, and just behind me, were these rocks. And can you see that? That is a fossil of a fish! Yup. At this height. The guide told us that all this was under the ocean millions of years ago. There were other fossils too, in the rock - and I'd never seen real fossils before, in their natural setting. And this wasn't even cordoned off, these were just any other rocks on the wayside. Somehow, it set my head spinning. 

I do wish I had better pictures of the caverns, but you can always look them up if you're interested.

We also went on a tour of Shasta Dam. It is quite remarkable in its history and engineering.

The high point of the tour for Puttachi (ok, even  us) was something totally unconnected to the dam. There was this long corridor, and the guide made us shout/clap and you could actually hear the sound waves going whooooosh and then hear the echo at the other end of the corridor after a sizeable gap of several seconds. I think none of us in the tour (all nationalities, all races, all ages) wanted to leave that corridor, we were having too much fun.

More about this vacation

Day 16 - 2 - Crater Lake

The astonishing Crater Lake at Oregon. The only words you can think of is Big, Blue.

It was originally a mountain. It blew its top. After all the lava had gushed forth, a caldera or crater is formed. That crater fills up with ice and pure water - and voila! Crater Lake is formed.

Try and get your head around this fact - Crater Lake holds holds 5 trillion gallons of water! That's 700 gallons of water for every person in the world! (1 gallon is nearly 4 litres.)

Just look at that blue!

So blue that it looks artificial and hurts your eyes.

More about this vacation

Day 16 - 1 - Lava Beds National Park

I bet none of you missed me yesterday, but yes, I missed a day. Not on purpose. S just came back from a 3-week vacation to India with a suitcase full of books and food, and I was distracted. Really, that's my excuse.

So I'll do two posts today to make up for it. So, to get on with it - Lava Beds National Park. 
which I wrote about for National Geographic Traveller India

So Lava Beds is a volcanic landscape, frozen in time. The most impressive part of this place is the underground Lava tubes, which are formed by the cooling down of flowing lava (explained in my article above.) Walking through these tubes is absolutely surreal and fascinating.

I recommend a visit to this place - highly.

Skull Cave. This has a year-round ice floor in the lower level. Outside, it was nearly a 100 deg F (39 deg C) Inside the cave, we needed jackets.

Absolutely pitch dark inside the caves. It is frightening to think of what will happen if you are lost in there without torches.

The landscape is desolate, with buttes like this scattered all around (these are little hills formed by volcanic eruptions)

Lava flowing down the walls of the cave, frozen in action

An example of pahoehoe - hardening lava dragging itself forward

Lava dripping down from the ceiling, again frozen.

Can you see the rivers of lava (right in the middle of the picture) - the dark grey strips of rock?

The entrance to many of the caves was like this. Even inside, there were these metal staircases to reach the lower levels

The Modocs lived here for hundreds of years, and a few miles from the Lava tube area is the Petroglyph Point, where we can see their rock art.

A lake on the way to Petroglyph point

This rock was an island once. The art is found on the walls of this rock.

More about this vacation

Day 14 - Vacation - North California + Oregon

Last summer, we went on a 5-day trip to a few places in Northern California and South Oregon. (I told you I was behind on my travel stories.) This was a good vacation, in terms of the places we chose to go, the rental car we got, the rental vacation, the company we had, the weather conditions -- basically, everything went our way. I'll write about it in detail in the next couple of days, but here's the itinerary we followed.

Day 1 - Start at 7 30 am from Fremont, reach Lava Beds National Monument, North California, at about 3 30 pm.
See Lava Beds and the nearby Petroglyph Point, a Native American rock art site.
Stay overnight at a hotel in Klamath Falls, Oregon.

Day 2 - Drive from Klamath Falls to Crater Lake, Oregon.
In the afternoon, drive from Crater Lake to vacation rental at Redding, California.

Day 3 - Drive to Shasta Lake, boat across the lake to Shasta Caverns, take a tour, back to vacation rental by afternoon.
Evening - Sundial Bridge and Turtle Bay Exploration Park, Redding.
Back to vacation rental at night.

Day 4 - Drive to Lassen Volcanic National Park - visit the Devasted Area, hike to Bumpass' Hell, and see the Mudpots.
Back to vacation rental at Redding.

Day 5 - Leave the vacation rental, go on a Shasta Dam tour, drive back to Fremont.

Photos and details coming up in the next few days, but today, I'll leave you with some photos that we took during the drive, of Mount Shasta.

Mount Shasta

I've always wanted to take a picture like this - an empty road with a mountain backdrop. I wasn't brave (or crazy) enough to stand in the middle of the road for the perfect snap, though.

Day 13 - Conversations with Puttachi

I was feeling lazy today to blog - so looked through my Drafts folder and found this. The first two conversations are from 2014. Don't know why I didn't post it at that time.

Me: Puttachi, you tell me so many stories, why don't you try writing down a few of them in your notebook?

She: Why should I?

Me: You'll forget your wonderful stories.  If you write them down, they can be recorded forever.

She: Don't say "forever."

Me: Why not?

She:  How do you know?  We're evolving, right? So if humans evolve into some other creatures, and if those creatures don't like books, then they'll get rid of books. So don't say forever. You don't know.  Nobody knows.

Me: (Meekly) Ok, I meant to say, you know, you can read them when you grow up.

She:  That's not forever.

Me:  (crumpling into silence)

***

Puttachi: (not able to sleep)  I'm not sleepy!

S: Why, what happened?

She: I'm scared.

S: About what?

She: The sun will become big, and it will burn the earth down.

S:  There are billions of years before that'll happen. You and me won't be around when that happens. Don't worry, go to bed now.

She: Oh ok. Good night!

*****

This one is from Feb 24 2015:

I've been telling Puttachi about people going to Mars. We go through days of questions about where they'll live, what they'll eat, how they'll breathe, etc.

And after that, she goes on to other questions.

Puttachi: Will they divide up the land on Mars into countries?

Me: I should hope not. On Earth, countries evolved over time. Now that people are going there, they will probably identify themselves as "From Earth" and will hopefully not make distinctions based on nationality or religion.

Puttachi: What if they do?

Me: I'm not saying they won't. But I just hope they'll learn from the mistakes we on Earth have made and watch out.

Puttachi: Do you know what I think?

Me: What?

Puttachi: I think nationality will not matter on Mars. But religion might still matter. But there is a way we can stop people from fighting over religion on Mars.

Me: What's that?

Puttachi: Send only those people who don't follow any religion.

Day 12 - We, the Judgmental

For centuries, we've stood at our doorsteps and passed judgment on the goings-on in our streets. Now the whole world is our street, and there is no dearth of subjects for us to pass judgment upon.

Take for instance, the BBC dad video that everybody is talking about. I am pretty sure you would have watched it already, but here it is anyway.



Every bit of this short video is hilarious. The seriousness of the topic. The carefree toddler skipping into the room. The clueless child rolling in. The supermom sliding in. Even if you tried and planned, you couldn't make such a funny video. Truth is definitely stranger (and funnier) than fiction.

Although the video was largely received with laughter and delight (and commiseration for work-from-home-problems) judgment is being passed on the family. That the dad ignored the child, that the mom looked terrified, that the children were mishandled, that this is patriarchy at work, and what have you. [It is also worth noting that many assumed she was the nanny, and not the mom. Care to analyse why?]

Seriously, all of us, sitting at our desks on the other side of the world, what can we possibly glean from this tiny slice of life? How can we possibly know the workings of their family? Even if we did know, why do we think we have the right to pass judgment on them?

I think that we comment and judge other people so as to feel better about our own selves. We are all after all, struggling with our own lives and decisions and the rights and wrongs, and self-doubt, and any bit of looking down upon others probably make us feel temporarily superior and righteous.

This video is one of the funniest things that have come along in a while, and I for one am going to watch it till I squeeze out every bit of laughter from it.

Day 11 - Puttachi asks for more (no, she doesn't)

I write this post at the risk of sounding totally weird. But I do it anyway in the hope that somebody out there will benefit from my stupidity and Puttachi's absentmindedness.

Puttachi is the kind who almost never asks for more food. Ever since she was a child, she just eats what I serve her, and makes it a point to finish everything. But very, very rarely does she say that she's still hungry. And very rarely does she ask for more food, or go ahead and take another helping. My explanation is that she is too lost in her own world to bother about such trivial things as nutrition for her growing body.

S and I love our food and so we are at a loss about what to make of this kid who doesn't seem as excited about food as we are. But we console ourselves with the fact that she is not even a little fussy, and eats food even if she doesn't particularly like it because, as she says, "It is good for me."

As a result, S and I just have to hazard a guess as to what quantity of food she will eat and make sure that that quantity is available to her. Thankfully, she does tell us if she is full, and so that way, we know how much she usually eats.

So over weeks and months, we all get used to a certain quantity. But then, all of a sudden, Puttachi starts complaining of headaches, or she says she's tired, or she's suddenly cranky, and we wonder why and worry for a couple of days until, bam! Realization hits us and we increase the quantity of food we put in her lunchbox or serve on her plate - and within a day, she's back to normal. Yes, she'd just outgrown the quantity of food, and was still hungry, and she needed more food. But she didn't know that.

Like I said, I know this is a totally "What are you talking about" post - but then, there you are. All kinds make up this world.

Day 10 - You know spring is here when . . .

9 years ago, I'd done a post, "You know summer is here when . . ."

That was Bangalore summer. This post is about Californian spring.

You know when spring is here when . . . (apart from the usual birdsong and flowers and budding leaves)

- You are walking around without socks after ages, and you look at your toes and say, "Hey, toes! Long time no see!"
- Acquaintances tell you that you've lost weight, and you say, "No, it's just that I'm wearing only one layer of clothes."
- You find yourself drinking water without having to heat it, even early in the morning.
- You find that you're not drinking as many beverages as usual.
- You don't need to close balcony doors and windows after you open them to let fresh air in.
- That crochet project using wool doesn't sound that exciting after all.
- You kick your blankets away in the middle of the night.
- You find yourself planning your walk earlier and earlier in the day, or late in the evening.
- You don't dread taking a shower.
- Cuddling with the kid gets uncomfortable after a few minutes.

What's your sign of spring/summer?

Day 9 - The day I thought on my feet (Keyboard chronicles continued)

Continued from here.

Back in school, I participated in every competition in school. Be it music, art, writing, debate, sport, I was there, entering my name. The only competition I didn't sign up was classical instrumental music, because I didn't know how to play any instrument.

One day, when I was in the ninth standard, the instrumental music competition was on at school, and we were allowed to go to the auditorium and watch. We sat there watching the eighth standard students play their violins and flutes and veenas. And then, the next participant came on to stage with a keyboard. I froze. Keyboards? Seriously, do keyboards count? I had never thought of it. I could have participated! I was so angry and frustrated that I could scream.

Just then, the boy finished playing and stepped down from the stage. Before I knew what I was doing, I got up and went out, and caught hold of him.

"Hey," I said. "My name is Shruthi. What's yours?"

"D," he said.

"Hey, D, can I borrow your keyboard today for the competition?"

"Sure," said D.

So I took the keyboard from him (it was a mini-keyboard) and went to the teachers and asked them to enter my name (the event for our class was to follow.)

But what would I play? I hadn't ever consciously played any classical composition on the keyboard. Yes, I knew quite a few compositions, having learnt to sing them. Yes, I was familiar with the keys on the keyboard, but I had no practice. What do I do? 

But I think, at the back of my mind, I already knew what I would do, even before I went up to D and asked him for the keyboard. Because I knew a little secret. The black keys on the keyboard constitute the notes of the raaga Mohana (called Bhupali in Hindustani). So if I played a composition in Raaga Mohana, using only the black keys, then there would not be a very great chance of my playing the wrong keys.

I took the keyboard a little away from the auditorium, and at a low volume, tried it out. I played a Mohana Varna. It worked. I made next to no mistakes. I was ready.

When they called my name out, I went on to stage and played. And guess what, I got the second prize.

For someone who is not very street smart, and doesn't think too quickly on her feet, this incident stands out, and I'm ridiculously proud of it.

100 Book Pact - 91 to 100

91/100 Tracks in the Snow by Lucy Jane Bledsoe

One of the better children's books I've read in a while. Erin is a persistent young girl who wants to go in search of her babysitter, whom nobody -- except her -- believes is missing. She gets her classmate Tiffany to join her with a ruse that they can study tracks in the snow for a school project. The two girls get caught in a blizzard in the woods, and an ordinary trek in the woods turns into a fight for survival. This is a tale of determination, persistence, friendship, loyalty and identity. The description and details are beautifully worked into the narration so that even while it enriches the book, it doesn't slacken the pace at all. This is the balance I strive for in my own writing. Puttachi loved it as much as I did. I took it along with me to Puttachi's basketball class, and I sat on the side and finished it in one go, in an hour. I couldn't take my eyes off the pages.

92/100 Mistakes That Worked by Charlotte Foltz Jones

A fun book with a lot of information on 40 accidental discoveries. Some of them were familiar, some new. The illustrations were quirky and surprising in their own right. Puttachi enjoyed them too. She doesn't like non-fiction much (surprise surprise) and wasn't too keen on reading this, but once she started, she couldn't stop.

93/100 Nanny X by Madelyn Rosenberg

A nanny with a difference - what's her secret? That's what the children under her care try to find out. I didn't enjoy it much, but seems like Puttachi did.

94/100 The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate

A story narrated by a gorilla. If that doesn't get your attention . . . Ivan is an art-loving gorilla confined to a cage in a mall for the entertainment of people, and he seems reconciled with his lot until the arrival of a little elephant. And then Ivan has to come up with a plan to get the little one out of the place. This was recommended by a friend and when I got this home, Puttachi told me that their librarian has been reading this out to them at school, and she is already half way through the book. She said she didn't like the first part, but she'd try reading the whole thing at one go. She did, and says she liked it very much. I liked it too. But it didn't blow me away though it has all the right ingredients for it. And that is one of the things I am not going to bother explaining. It just is!

95/100 Nirmala Bharati or Makkala Mahabharata by AR Krishna Shastri

A concise Mahabharata for children in Kannada. An iconic book in its time, but it is rather dated now, both in its style and illustrations. Actually Puttachi and I had already read Namita Gokhale's Puffin Mahabharata, and I keep telling her stories from here and there - so she knows the Mahabharata pretty well. But I wanted to read out something in Kannada for her, because we never get to read Kannada often, and so I chose this one. I didn't like it at all - neither the style of narration, nor the details. I persisted anyway, just so that Puttachi can hear some written-style Kannada. Now I really need to source some good Kannada books that I can read out to her. Any suggestions?

96/100 The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh

Reading this book, I had an epiphany. Amitav Ghosh is my favourite Indian writer. Yes, I haven't read all his work yet. Yes, I thought The Calcutta Chromosome was weird. Yes, I couldn't get through even two chapters of The Circle of Reason. However, the Ibis trilogy hurled me into his fandom, and now, The Hungry Tide has made that place pretty secure.

Set in the Sunderbans in West Bengal, the book deals with lives that are intertwined through decades, and the inexplicable relationships that arise between totally dissimilar people. As in his Ibis trilogy, his research leaves nothing to be desired, and plunges the reader (the kind who like such details) into a world that she is doesn't want to leave. And the storm. His description of the storm/cyclone was so effective that I was blown away (in several senses of the word).

97/100 The House at Riverton by Kate Morton.

This was recommended to me by someone who knew I enjoyed Downton Abbey. And yes, it has all the same elements in it, and it had mystery and suspense but I didn't enjoy it wholeheartedly. I think I didn't like the way it was structured - an old lady reminiscing about her times, through stories told on tape to her missing grandson - I think a simpler storyline would have worked better. Though I must say that given how easily I abandon books these days, I didn't feel like giving this one up.

98/100 A Quiet Place by Seicho Matsumoto

Interesting thriller about a man whose wife dies when he is away on business. And though the circumstances of the wife's death seem natural, the man is convinced that something is amiss, and he goes after the root of the mystery, with unfortunate consequences. The story is told from the POV of the man, and it is a kind of unusual POV, but if I tell you why, it would be a spoiler.

99/100 The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen

A Jewish girl, who is annoyed with Jewish holidays that aim at "remembering", is transported back from the present time to 1942 and is sent to a death camp, and by the time she comes back to the present, she realizes why it is so important to remember. Very disturbing book. Also, I might have appreciated it better if I had been able to get past the question of how she happened to get transported. It is so random and so inexplicable, especially because she doesn't even retain her own identity, that it didn't work for me.

100/100 Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie

A boy goes on an adventure to the land where stories come from, trying to get the Gift of the Gab back for his father who seems to have lost it, and meets several unforgettable characters along the way. I read this out to Puttachi, and we enjoyed it thoroughly. The puns and the wordplay are delightful and you can enjoy it at so many levels. We now speak to each other like the characters do, in their style. I think that I would have not enjoyed it as much if I had read it to myself.

Day 8 - The keyboard we owned, growing up.

We recently bought a keyboard. The story of how we got the keyboard remains to be told, and I'll do that some day. But the new arrival got me thinking about the keyboard that we had as kids.

It was a Casio, and my father brought it back from one of his official visits abroad. Nobody we knew had anything like this back then (This was in the eighties.) I still remember going to the airport to receive him, and he walking towards us carrying the keyboard in a kind of sling in his left hand.

And we were so thrilled with it. The only thing we'd seen like it was the harmonium, which was boring, and the grand piano, which was well, grand, and only seen in the lobbies of 5-star hotels. Our keyboard had different tones, and beats, and you could do all kinds of clever things with it. (Compared to what current keyboards can do, ours was pretty basic, but you must remember that it was the eighties.)

None of us in our family have formal training; we all learned to play by ear, and we got pretty good at it. In my teens, I've served as the keyboard accompanist to several songs and group songs both at school and in our township. Once, my sister Peevee and I performed Made in India (Alisha Chinai), Peevee singing, me on the keyboard. And one of the township uncles came over after the performance and said, "It was good, but not as good as Alisha Chinai's."

How we rolled our eyes. I write this and my eyes are automatically rolling again. (And I'm sure my sister is reading this and her eyeballs are going all over the place too.)

There was one time when we thought it was the end of the keyboard. Peevee had contracted scarlet fever. [I had just finished reading Little Women where one of the characters die of scarlet fever and for a few days I was terrified that something would happen to Peevee.] She was passing time playing the keyboard. My mother handed her a glass of Horlicks. Ordinarily, she would have to move away from the keyboard to drink, but since she was sick, I guess my mom was a little lenient.

But guess what, Peevee dropped the glass on the keyboard, and the Horlicks spilled out and trickled deep into all the cracks and crevices and between the keys and what have you.

After that, we established Project Dry-up-Keyboard. My father unscrewed it and set all the parts out, and all of us joined in to push increasingly tiny pieces of cotton into all the crevices to mop up the stickiness. Soon, the Horlicks dried and we had to moisten the cotton in order to get the Horlicks out of all the parts. The keyboard lay like a dissected whale for a few days, and then we mantled (the opposite of dismantled is mantled, right? No? It's okay. I'll use it anyway) the keyboard back and tentatively put the batteries in and turned it on.

And it worked!

Guess what, it still works.

Continued here.

Day 7 - The Writer's 12-step guide to reacting to a win

1) Receive news of a win/acceptance/publication/good review

2) Dance around the house.

3) Blow your own trumpet on social media.

4) Read the piece that won/was published. Pat yourself on the back. "I'm so brilliant!"

5) Re-read the piece. "Did I really write that? Hmm. Must have been one inspired moment."

6) Re-re-read the piece. "Seriously, I don't think I can write like this again."

7) Eat chocolate. "I can never write another word ever again."

8) Eat more chocolate. "Everybody will come to know that I'm a fraud."

9) Eat a big pack of potato chips. "Why do I even bother getting out of bed?"

10) Pick yourself up, finally, because your family is giving you "the look".

11) Write again. Because, well, you can't not write. And also, deadlines.

12) 1 to 11 - Rinse and Repeat.

Day 6 - TV Series that I've watched - 2

TV Series That I've Watched - 1

The Bletchley Circle - Four women who worked at Bletchley Park get together post-war, and solve murders by using their code-breaking and pattern-finding skills. What's not to like, really?

Fauda - An intense, well-made series based on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I liked it for the gripping action, the wonderful performances by the entire cast, and for the fact that they've shown both sides of the conflict so well that you feel connected and invested in both sides! And I like watching non-western series, one of the reasons being that I love to look at different faces and features. These faces - they were Indian, but not quite. I quite enjoy that.

The Fall - A handsome, athletic man, a great, loving father, but also a serial killer. A cop, cold, confident and focused, out to find him before he finds his next victim. Great performances, very gripping. The second series was extremely slow compared to the first, but it picked up towards the end, and was satisfying.

Dicte -  A Danish series about a journalist, Dicte, who single-mindedly follows up crimes to report on them, and of course, ends up helping solve many of them. Good one. There are a lot of personal elements in this, about Dicte and the people around her.

The West Wing - Probably the first series we watched after getting here. Enjoyed it so much that I sometimes mixed up West Wing events with real events. Also got a good picture of how the American political system works.

Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries - An Australian period drama of a highly emancipated-for-her-time feminist detective. I enjoyed the first few episodes, but then they got a little repetitive. I should go try the rest now, it has been a while.

Poirot - Agatha Christie's Poirot, of course, with David Suchet's famed performance. I admit Poirot started annoying me after a while, but the series is well-made (not the last couple of them, though - liked the initial episodes much more.)

Annedroids - Okay, this is something (the only thing, actually) that Puttachi watches. It is a fun, award-winning Canadian show for children, with STEM concepts explained in a simple way. Anne is a brilliant girl who has built her own androids, and she and her friends have several adventures. Puttachi started watching this at school (her teacher showed this to class during rainy-day-recess.

I also watched a few comedy series as a background - sometimes to exercise, some while I cook or do other monotonous work. Some of these are Friends, Frasier and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt - I don't have to tell you about the first two, I guess, but about the third - Kimmy has been in a bunker for 15 years, kidnapped by some weirdo, and she is now outside and trying to make a life for herself in NY. It was kind of fun, but I think one would enjoy it better if they get all the pop culture references that are a dime a dozen in the series.

I'll add to this list if I remember any more.

Edited to add on March 16th:

Happy Valley - Got to be one of my favourite series, really. The complex main character of Catherine Cawood, a cop, is one of the best I've seen on TV/movies. Stunning performances, gripping storylines. And what characterization, really!

Now it is time for you to suggest some good series! :)

Day 5 - TV Series that I've watched - 1

With all my talk of books, I've not spoken at all about the TV series that I've watched over the last couple of years. On Netflix. Some on Amazon Prime. I feel I must talk about these, because they've been an integral part of my daily life. After all, I love stories, and what difference does it make how it is told?  I'm always on the look out for good series that I can watch, and am very thankful to people who put up reviews. So I'm returning the favour (to whomsoever it may concern) and doing a few posts on the series I've watched.

Breaking Bad - A dying high-school Chemistry teacher decides to cook a batch of crystal meth to make some money for his family before he dies, and before he knows it, he gets sucked into it in a way that you cannot begin to imagine. I don't think I need to talk about this much, seeing as to how everybody seems to have already watched it. I enjoyed it in a weird, obsessed way. S and I started watching it together, but S dropped out after a few episodes. I continued, and finished it. Honestly, watching this series made me realize that all that advice of surrounding yourself with pleasant things because it will make you calm and serene - that advice makes sense. Because watching this was disturbing, even physically. I was glad to finish it and be done with it. A shout out to the character Gus Fring - the most interesting character I've seen in a series, and to the actor who played it - Giancarlo Esposito. What a fascinating face he has.

Downton Abbey - The life and times of a grand family on an old English estate. I have written about it before, about how the characters really held my interest. I had watched most of the seasons back in India on TV. Watched the last season here on Amazon Prime. I admit I have an affinity for these old English dramas, even in books, and this series fulfilled all my requirements. Loved it.

North and South - The story of a young woman whose family moves to the north of England, and how they struggle to adjust to life there. It is based on a novel of the same name. Very small series - just four episodes. But it really impressed me. Okay, to be very honest, it was Richard Armitage, who played the character John Thornton, who is the one of the main reasons for my love for this series. No, but really, the story is good, and the series is well-made.

River - A 6-part British series about a cop fighting psychological battles while looking for the killer of his partner. Very well-made, and great performances by Stellan Skarsgard and Nicola Walker. And the song "I love to love" which plays a part in the series, stayed with me for weeks after.

Wallander (Swedish TV Series): Adapted from Henning Mankell's novels, this is an excellent cop series with Krister Henriksson as Wallander, which we enjoyed. The cinematography is spectacular too.

Wallander (UK TV Series): Yeah, the same character, but different stories, and in English, this time played by Kenneth Branagh. We enjoyed the Swedish one better, but this one is good too.

Orange is the New Black: I am the only person I know who liked OITNB, a women's prison drama series. I admit I got annoyed sometimes, and yet, it did get gross sometimes, but then when it became too much to handle, I simply stopped watching, and continued later, and then I was not annoyed or grossed out any longer. I came to like and feel for the characters (except the main character - her I increasingly detested)

Blacklist: S and I started watching this in India, a set-a-thief-to-catch-a-thief kind of series, and we liked the first season, esp the flamboyance of the character Reddington played by James Spader. The second season, which we watched here in the US, was ok-ok, but the third season was terrible. We finished it out of loyalty.

How to Get Away with Murder: Started off well, this story of a tough lawyer and her students, and liked the first series in spite of the back and forth screenplay. But couldn't get through the second series.

TV Series that I've Watched - 2

Day 4 - The Children First contest

Duckbill Publishers, along with Parag, an initiative of the Tata Trust, and Vidyasagar School, Chennai, conducted a contest called Children First, where they asked for stories which deal with challenges (physical/mental/emotional) that children face, and how, in spite of everything, children are children first.

I had sent in two stories and to my delight, both of them were shortlisted in the top 7 among the 150 entries received.

Today, I heard that that one of my stories is among the 4 winners of the contest. And the other one seems to have something in store for it too. See you tomorrow, I'll let this soak in until then.

Day 3 - Mandatory Puttachi update

Considering that my blog saw an upsurge of readership due to my Puttachi posts during her early childhood, it stands to reason that any readers who happen to be sticking around want Puttachi updates. Honestly, updates on a nearly ten-year-old isn't as much fun as updates on a child who is learning to walk, talk, and reason. (If you're new, do check out old Puttachi updates here. The newer ones are here.) However, since some of you asked, here it is.

Yes, she has just three months to go before she turns 10, as she doesn't stop reminding me. She loves reading (a little too much, if you ask me), and she loves somersaults so much that she actually moves from room to room somersaulting. It can be very funny or very annoying when you are in a hurry. And yes, she is still slow with her meals, although she eats anything and everything that you put in front of her.

She enjoys school, and has a good time doing homework and projects (yes she's that kind of kid.) She has good friends, at school, and at home (her bff lives a couple of doors away).

She is still a cheerful and smile-y girl, like she has always been, though the grumps hit her sometimes. She bounces back well, though.

She likes posing for pictures with flamboyant gestures, as is obvious:

She asks to read some of her childhood posts on my blog, and I curate some of them for her. She enjoys it, sometimes laughing breathlessly. That was my whole point of writing about her, and I'm glad it is bearing fruit.

I love reading out to her, and she loves listening. I also enjoy going for walks with her because she's good company. Another thing we enjoy doing together is learn Spanish.

Her reasoning and outlook on life is a lot of fun to listen to. And very educative. I love the way she thinks, basically. She is also developing a unique sense of humour - subtle, which surprises me at the oddest moments.

I also like her attitude towards most things. She is fearless and confident and willing to learn, always. She whines sometimes, and is lazy most of the times, but I think it can be worked on.

She goes to basketball classes. She is supposed to be learning music from my mom and me, but she doesn't practice.

She is a typical big sister to my niece, whom we meet in the weekends -- she can be huffy and go lock herself up to escape the little one's attentions, or she can be completely big-sisterly and feed her, cuddle her, read to her and play with her.

It is very obvious that the teens are just around the corner, and I have to constantly rethink and relearn ways of dealing with her and connecting with her.

Day 2 - Readers, unlimited

Back in Bangalore, Puttachi was one of the very few children I knew who liked to read. I can think of just 2 or 3 more children of her age who loved books and read as much as she did. Some read off and on, others read just the popular books doing the rounds, but the majority of them didn't read at all.

In contrast, here, I'm yet to find a child who does *not* read. All the kids I've met in our circles, and among Puttachi's friends, are not just readers, but voracious readers. Some of them seem to gobble down books, and they recommend books to each other, and then when the friends are done gobbling the books down, they discuss the stories and characters endlessly.

Kids in stores bring along books while their parents shop for groceries. There is a boy I see in the elevator who reads all the time, even in the elevator, on the way to school. A boy we met recently was shy and reticent until I asked him what he reads, and then he blossomed into a talker who wanted to talk about books and nothing else.

Is this a Bay Area phenomenon? - Was my initial thought. But my friends in other parts of the US tell me that their children love to read too.

All those doomsday prophecies of reading and books going out of fashion, and television taking over -- they all sound ridiculous. 

What is the reason for this book mania? The main reason that pops out at me is the availability of books - plain and simple. Puttachi, for instance, has access to three libraries. The public library, the school library, the class library. She can read, borrow and enjoy multiple books from these collections. And remember, access to all these libraries is free.

The second reason seems to be that books are an integral part of school -- public school, at least. Silent reading is encouraged in class. The librarian at school reads out from a book, continuing each week where they left off the previous week. Their teachers read out books to them. They have projects at school revolving around a classic children's novel each year. Children are encouraged to read for at least 20 minutes every day at home, and they have to submit reading logs each week, for credit. Their schools organize programs (like Bookleggers) where the love of books is kindled.

Obviously, it is hard not to get drawn into the world of books when you are surrounded by books. Besides, with more and more children reading, their peers who aren't too enamoured by books get drawn into conversations, and they probably end up reading too.

What do you think?

Day 1 - A post a day for March

So you thought I'd disappeared? And forgotten this blog? And was using it to link only to my books and the books I've read? Well, I'm back with a post a day for March. And please note that I chose a month with 31 days to show my sincerity.

So what have I been up to? Apart from learning to live in a new country (which sometimes doesn't feel like a different country at all), I've been editing, and I've been writing. I also did some work for a tech start-up. We travelled a fair bit last year, and hopefully, one of the things I'll do this month is do short write-ups on all our travels, with photos, my impressions, and itineraries and other (hopefully) useful information.

My second winter in California wasn't as bad as the first. No chilblains this time (except once) and generally, I've tolerated it better. I've heard people say that - "Oh! Your first winter! Don't worry, it gets better." I wonder why. Does the body adapt? Or is it the mind that adapts?

Before I go, let me leave you with this little bit of news that made me happy.

Chetsang Rinpoche (https://www.facebook.com/drikungkyabgon/)
- liked The Secret Garden
- quoted from it in a public speech while introducing Sonam Wangchuk (who also liked the book!)
- asked for the book to be translated into Tibetan.

If you want to see some reviews and buy the book, this is the place to go for the relevant links.

So I'll see you around with more news and chatty posts.

(Thanks for not giving up on me!)