We've moved!

Its been quite a while since I posted anything, and so there is a lot to talk about!

Our big news, of course, is that we have moved into a house! Quite unexpectedly, we were allotted a flat in a 9-story block of one-bedroom apartments called the 'New PG Quarters'. My cousin Vinod stays on the second floor, and we have been given a house on the sixth floor.

We moved over the last week. In addition to moving all our stuff from the previous room, we had to take out the stuff we had kept in storage. We then went through the good process of deciding what was important to keep, and got rid of some stuff, so that we could fit everything nicely into this new house.

Anand was a great help and we were so grateful for this grace. While we were packing up the previous room, with boxes and stuff lying around everywhere, Anand kept himself out of the way, playing quietly with his toys in a corner. He kept generating imaginary friends, and situations, and we were able to keep working. Sweets packed everything well into boxes, and we hired a few men to come and help us move. Everything went off very smoothly and well.

We are quite pleased with our new home. It is well situated and is not too hot. We have a good view from most of the windows, and a pleasant breeze goes through the house. Before we moved in, the hospital got the house nicely painted, and done up. We have good neighbours, and Anand has found a number of children on our floor to be friends with.

The house has a sitting room-dining room, one bedroom, a study, kitchen and two toilets. Sweets has been very happy to be able to do something she has wanted to do for a long time.....give Anand a room for himself. We have given him the study. He has his own book shelves with all his books, boxes with all his toys, his own bed, and other belongings.

Unfortunately, he has not started sleeping in his room yet. Both he and his parents will find that difficult to do...!

The chickens were another story though. We kept them on the ground floor of the building we are staying in, in what, we thought, was an ideal place. Unfortunately, the oldest of them, a rooster, began crowing the next morning. This infuriated our neighbour's dog, who began competing with his own musical contribution. By the time we came down for the day, our chickens had been summarily relocated some distance away, beside the basketball court.

We have now found another uncontroversial place for them. We are happy to report that there are a number of children who are excited about these chickens, and are happily sneaking away their food from their houses under their parents' noses and feeding it to the chickens.

On a sadder note, we are disappointed that all four chickens are beginning to show signs that they are 'definitely male'. It does not look like we will be able to get any eggs from them. I foresee a good chicken soup in our future...

In between all this excitement, we travelled to Bangalore for my brother Prem's engagement. Anand, as usual, managed to make himself the star in the compartment, rapidly surrounding himself with his admirers and fans.



We would love to have you over in our new home. Now that we have a bigger home, we hope many of you will be able to visit us. A good time to start would be Anand's second birthday coming up on Nov 23rd.

Our first guest will be my sister Preethi, visiting us tomorrow for a few days.

Here are some videos from the last month:

The next Bob Dylan....I especially like the flourish with which he ends his performance!



Helping his mother make an omelette



Helping us shift his cardboard house to the new home. Anand held on to the stretcher all the way, and kept pushing with all his might.



Here's some stuff from last week's reading:

The remarkable story of Brawn GP. I like these fairytale sort of stories, where the underdog comes from behind to pull off a famous victory. I also found these comments of Brawn's leadership style thought-provoking.

"Brawn has now won nine F1 drivers' titles and eight constructors' championships with three different teams - adding his own to Benetton and Ferrari. Button is the first driver other than Michael Schumacher to be crowned under his guidance. But pinning down exactly what makes the softly spoken 54-year-old Englishman the best technical manager in F1 is surprisingly difficult.

"It's amazing - it's all very subtle," says the Brawn insider. "It's almost like you don't know he's doing it.

"He has meetings, and he talks about how he thinks things should be done in the future and so on, and because his reputation is second to none, you don't question where it's coming from. But he doesn't come into the drawing office very much.

"He doesn't tell everyone what to do, he just leaves us to get on with it. He's not autocratic by any stretch of the imagination. He just gives people the confidence to do what they can do, and removes their concerns as they come up.

"The big thing is having the technical organisation he wants and letting them get on with it. It's a strange thing, because it's the same bunch of people who last year designed a dog." "

Here is another good cartoon from my favourite strip Calvin and Hobbes explaining the state of the present economy



(Please click on the cartoon to read it better)

And some wise words from John Piper, that make me think I should stop right here and go on to more important things.

"One of the great uses of Twitter and Facebook will be to prove at the Last Day that prayerlessness was not from lack of time."