Lilypie Kids Birthday tickers
Lilypie Kids Birthday tickers

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

She's gonna get a name!

Tomorrow is our daughter's naming ceremony. The 28th day after she was born, according to Malayali traditions. Well, we followed everything tamil for Kachi and Kautu and this time, I wanted whatever I could have to be the Kerala style..like it was done for me.
And she's going to be named 'Kritika C Karthik' where C stands for Chakiyat, my family name. There's a small story behind Kritika too..I don't know if I have mentioned this, but after coming to see the new born baby in the hospital, for another 4 days Kautu kept singing 'Kritika'. For that time, everything in the house was Kritika, all vegetables, tv and in fact, all his toys too! My mom asked him what the baby's name was, and he repeated the same...Kritika!!! After 4 days, he hasn't repeated it till yesterday. Infact, yesterday and today, he's again been singing this name, and I have a feeling he will stop after the naming ceremony!! To add to this, another four people have inadvertently asked me what are you naming her? Kritika? !!!! Imagine our surprise! We asked them if they had heard us mention it before and they all said they had thought of this name just then.
After all these coincidences, how can we not but name her 'Kritika'? Agreed it not a very uncommon name, but it does have a poetry to it, and Kritika Karthik does sound strong and independent, like what I am hoping my daughter would grow up to be.
The preparations for the function is hardly done, lots of vegetables to buy and her black bangles and Kajal. But I went out today and got her what I wanted the most. A lovely infant dress from fabindia. What I had been eyeing the past few years. So, no matter that my back was aching and that its been just 3+ weeks since the c-section, I just had to take a rickety auto to the shop, pick out a printed floral cotton frock and a printed shirt with bloomers for the baby and completely averted my eyes from the XL kurtas that lie just across the aisle!
So, please send in your blessing for my daughter (I shall formally start calling her Kriti from tomorrow) and all your good wishes!

Monday, February 4, 2008

A sighting too rare

Kautu and I were standing by the window just a while back and looking out into the courtyard of the commodore (theres a lovely lawn there and an alsation which is a prime favorite with the kids) when I saw a huuugggeee black striped snake crawling in our garden! Well, the garden below our bedrooms belong to the house below(we stay on the first floor) and the one to the left of our house is ours. And there it was, crawling from our garden, under the wired fence to theirs, right below our bedroom window, stopping on the way to sun itself. By then I was frantically shouting for my mom(she had taken Kachi to the bathroom) who came running to see what the matter was. We showed the exited Kachi and Kautu the snake which was trying to climb onto the wall and get to the neighboring house! It could lift its body to almost half the wall .....and shattered my belief that snakes can do only the crawling bit!
It then decided that climbing walls is not its thing and found a tree nearby to be more friendly. It lifted itself again and wrapped itself over the lowest lying branch. From there, it was a piece of cake for the snake to climb over the tree and onto the adjacent wall. Till it disappeared from view, the stunned lot (me, mom, Kachi, Kautu and the maid) couldn't take our eyes of it. Inspite of our fears, we spent some time marveling at the sheer beauty of its movement and true to his style, instead of fearing for our safety, my husband, on being called up immediately to relate the incident, enquires why I didn't click a snap of the snake!!
I wanted to come close to nature and thats why we picked up this house. But I really don't think I fancy being this close and I shudder to think of even opening the windows to the right of the house all of which have trees touching (more than just touching, the branches almost enter the house) the window through which our acrobatic snake can easily make an entry!

Heres a snap of the lawns our bedroom overlooks. The garden I am talking about is in front the wall, not visible in the snap.