Tag: Rithika

  • Pen Festival 2025 + Ramsar Bakery

    I went to the Pen Festival yesterday with my daughter. I had written about the last time here.

    The Festival had graphologists, pen doctor, leather covers and bags, lots of fountain pens, some paper stationary, and inks. We met Vishwesh and Vipul.

    Image: V’sign Neo (maroon) for my wife. V’sign Cute (green) for my daughter, her first fountain pen. Daughter and me, on the right. Image credit: Pradeep Mohandas.

    We got two pens – one for my wife and another for my daughter.

    We were heading back from the venue back home when the pleasant aroma of the bakery caught me.

    I drank the cola flavour after a really long time. I opened the crimped down glass bottle cap with an old style bottle opener tied with a twine around the refrigerator handle.

    The refrigerator had various flavours. My wife drank the lemon flavour a day before when we passed through here. I tried a sip.

    We got this at Ramsar Bakery in Pune. It was on the way home on a route Google Maps had suggested we take.

    Image: Crimped Down bottle cap (left) from a brand from Pune called Ardy’s. Nankhatai (right).

    We bought nankhatai. The man sitting at the counter offered our son one. When his eyes lit up at the taste of the nankhatai, the man offered him one more. We bought a pav kilo (250 gm) of it. My daughter liked it too. My wife was crazy about it too. We finished the pack that evening.

    My wife said we should buy these every time we pass through that road on the corner of a busy street where the scooters park adjacent to the side walk, sometimes causing a traffic commotion – a cacophony of horns from scooters behind them who now have to change their paths.

  • Daughter’s First Day at School

    Today is my daughter’s first day at school. She is in Nursery.

    First, let me acknowledge my privilege in being able to afford a school that is starting on time during a pandemic. The classes are online. Being able to afford a separate laptop for her with enough internet bandwidth to attend class and for me to work from home is a blessing.

    We were thinking of moving to Kerala in May 2020. I was working from home and schools were not slated to open till September 2020 this year. The interstate pass system had opened. We were applying for passes planning to drive down to Kerala. The request got rejected. On the evening of the same day, we got an email from my daughter’s school that school would open with online classes on June 10, 2020. June 10 is the day schools normally open in Maharashtra, where we are based now.

    This stopped us from seeking a pass to go to Kerala and we decided to stay put here. Although classes are online, we were not sure how easy it would be to travel between Maharashtra and Kerala at some point in the future.

    Many of the smaller private schools and government schools have still not opened and are wondering how to ensure that everyone can access academic content. There are concerns around content delivery and access. My daughter’s school has assumed that it’s parents have the privilege to access a laptop or a smartphone at home with good bandwidth.

    A few days before the announcement, I was listening to Rukmini’s podcast, The Moving Curve. She was talking about the importance of opening up schools and day care facilities as a precursor to parents returning to work. In India, working parents choose and depend on schools to take care of their kids most of the day to enable them to go to work.

    In a recent episode, Rukmini spoke of how a disruption of even a year in the student’s academic track leads to a loss in pay of about 15% per year later on in life. That’s getting one pay grade less than one deserves for the rest of life.

    This helped me realize the importance of privilege of being able to have my daughter attend school now.

    I was watching this video in Malayalam of efforts people are taking to prepare their child for school online. Cleaning up the background, setting up a desk for studying and providing water and sufficient lighting during studies. There are also health considerations like keeping a safe distance between the child’s eyes and the screen.

    Online class about to begin… video in Malayalam

    I lent the table and chair I was using for working from home to my daughter. We put a sofa cushion on the seat so that the camera is at the correct height that she can be seen. We have moved furniture around so that the background is our wall. We also did a few test runs with my parents last night.

    My daughter’s classes are on Microsoft Teams, a software that even I was only introduced to last year while I was working with State Bank of India. She has her own email id for accessing content and for school work.

    My best wishes for everyone who are on this journey.

  • Rithika’s Vidyarambham

    Vidyarambham is celebrated at the end of Navratri on Vijayadashmi day. It is the auspicious ceremony to introduce kids to learn alphabets, music, dance, start a business, before going to school etc.

    The priest who conducts the vidyarambham writes, “Hari Sri Ganapataye Namah” on the child’s tongue with a golden ring. She is also made to write on rice.

    A picture of Rithika writing in rice during her Vidyarambham. Image Credit: Pradeep Mohandas
    Rithika writing in rice during her Vidyarambham. Image Credit: Pradeep Mohandas

    As we planned to send Rithika to school next month, we conducted her vidyarambham on August 25, 2019 at the Ayyappa Temple in Dhanori.

    Picture of Rithika with her father. Image Credit: Dhanya Vallat
    Rithika with her father. Image Credit: Dhanya Vallat

    Best wishes to Rithika as she begins her life long journey of learning from her father.

  • Becoming a Father

    I’m in Palakkad right now. I became a father to a baby girl on April 25, 2017. The experience has been overwhelming. Both the mother and daughter are doing fine. 

    I’m back in Palakkad again after a few days here at the end of April for my daughter’s 28th day ceremony. We’ve named her Rithika.