Child’s Play – Akshara Rajaram

Akshara is already showing signs of things to come. Sometime back, we were to go out shopping. So, Vidhya had dressed up Akshara in a pink and white dress with matching hair-clips (of course they have to match, isnt it?)

I got the task of putting on the shoes. So, i got a pair (which i thought was the closest match) and started requesting/begging/pleading Akshara to stay put in one place. But, she was vehemently denying all such requests and was constantly pointing in the direction of the shoe cupboard and saying “Shoe, Shoe…”. I didn’t quite understand. But, after realising that she was not interested in putting on the shoes, i let her go. Off she walked to the cupboard, opened it and started searching inside. Then, with a big smile on her face, she came back with a pair and gave it to me and said “Shoe.Shoe..”. This time , she cooperated and in fact was happy was this pair. Well, if you are interested in the pair she picked, look below!

Well, my concern isn’t exactly towards her choice of the colour of the shoe. Being different sometimes is equal to “highly fashionable”, but the fact that she was insisting on wearing a shoe of her choice is what made me realise that she had grown up.

And, she is just one and a half years old….

written by Rajaram S

It was time for Akshara’s ayush-homam function, the one that is done on the first star-birthday and sometimes accompanied by the ear-piercing ceremony (pictures of this in a separate post). The “english-birthday” party in Chennai didnt require invitations to be sent as it was only for close family members. But, this one was an important function and required the presence of a much bigger group of relatives. The usual traditional invite was sent to the relatives by snail mail.

With so many people having an online presence nowadays, including cctogenarians, it was imperative to send out an email invite. I didn’t want to just scan the traditional invite and send it across. How many of us can understand the hardcore tamil stuff written on such invites? So, we wanted to prepare a collage to be sent along with email invite

We had bought the below photo-frame-clock in Lepus store in Cyprus (a great store for all kinds of trinkets!) with the idea that one day we would put in photos of Akshara taken on different months. Currently, the clock hangs in our hall, but with no photos. This concept seemed to fit a first birthday party.

I then got the image of a circular clock face to be super-imposed on top of the existing clock, so that i would be easily able to play around with the colours.

Then came the toughest part – choosing photos to put for every month of the first year. The first one was easy. That was the first photo of Akshara taken in the hospital in Cyprus. For every photo after this one, there was lot of debate between Vidhya and me. I would short-list the photos based on the time they were taken (1st month, 2nd month etc) and then we would choose the one to put on the invite. Also, i moved the minute hand of the clock a little to the right, as the function was actually 2 weeks after her actual birthday!

So, here it is, the collage showing the first 12 months of Akshara.

written by Rajaram S

Kholu time is the time to dress up well (at least for the girls of the house) every day. But, this doesnt mean that the guy in the house could have a field day. It meant that i had to maintain decorum in the house and also be in a presentable manner ! My mom was here and she had done her usual thing, the big Rangoli, which never fails to impress

Akshara seemed to relish the fact that friends came over every day. Of course, the best part she liked was getting dressed up in traditional clothes and being photographed!

written by Rajaram S

It was Akshara’s first birthday and we wanted it to be a special occasion. But, the flying pigs (swine flu) in Pune meant that organising a party and inviting friends was out of the question. We didn’t want to have a quiet in-the-house cake cutting ceremony for the first birthday. So, off we flew to Chennai for the weekend to have a party there.

It was a small party intended for close relatives. We booked a hall at GRT Convention centre, next to the GRT Grand Days hotel on G.N.Chetty Road. the folks back in Chennai visited dozens of hotels/Halls for this purpose and finally decided on GRT convention centre because the hall was impressive and the price was quire reasonable at 500 rupees a head including dinner. Choosing the menu turned out to be an ordeal in itself as the hotel had given a huge list of items in various categories and we had to choose some from each category.

A birthday party has to have a birthday cake. Vidhya, after spending hours online, narrowed down on four designs which were promptly sent across to the chennai folks with the various priorities and intricacies explained. Yet another tour of Chennai happened, this time of the many bakeries. Few said that only the head chef/baker could do this and would require time (we gave only 2 days notice!) whereas few said that such a design could be managed only on a fruit cake (yuk!). Finally, Cakes ‘n Bakes agreed to whatever conditions we imposed (including the tight deadline) and produced a masterpiece, one that was indistinguishable from the sample printout we had given. Hats off to Cakes ‘n Bakes.

The cake was huge, weighing in at almost 5 kilos. This was because everything other than the doll was actually made of “cake” or icing. A closer look at the cake below shows that even the dress of the doll was made of icing. Cool!

Vidhya had a nice idea. She had actually seen Surya wear a tshirt with a photo of his kid. So, she wanted me to wear something similar during the party. So, after some photoshop work, i took an image to Big Bazaar and they got it neatly printed on a white tshirt. I originally thought that they would just do a rubber print (which is messy), but they printed directly on a custom-made tshirt and the print blended very well on the tshirt.

Akshara, at the beginning, was a little terrified of the cake, which she probably perceived as an adversary. But, once she realised that it was an inanimate adversary, she was up to her usual stuff and started pulling the hair of the doll on the cake

The thathas and Paatis wanted to pose with the star of the evening. So, it was like a marriage reception where Akshara was passed on to the next group waiting to have their photo taken with her

Akshara became so fond of the balloons that it began to be used as a prop to make Akshara smile when being photographed!

In the midst of all the photography sessions, someone reminded us that the cake has to be cut for this to be a birthday party. So, with the cacophony of “Happy Birthday to you” in the background, Akshara calmly cut her first birthday cake!

written by Rajaram S

One year ago (Not according to the English Calendar), on the day of Gokulashtami (or Krishna Jayanti or Janmashtami, basically the day we have murukku/Cheedai at home!), Akshara was born. Last year, before we went to the hospital, i had the task of drawing the little feet on the ground. I am not known for my drawing/sketching skills, definitely not with the hands using a flowing yet sticky liquid. So, what emerged were unique shapes (each foot was different from the other) which were, according to me, classic examples of modern art, those that lent different interpretations to different people based on the what that they had for lunch that day.

Even this year, the drawings looked strange, but i was not the artist. It was Akshara herself! We had an interesting time trying to get her feet dipped in the liquid and make her stand in one place (she cannot yet walk), long enough for the impression to be made. She didn’t co-operate at first, but once we showed her that things could easily get messy, she started enjoying the mess!

After that it was show-time, with the Vidhya and her mom working together to get all the stuff on Akshara. This was easier said than done.

Akshara usually enjoys being photographed and poses well, but this time she realised that it was more fun to take out all the ornaments and start playing with them.

So, we had to move her closer to the latest love of her life (the dining table – a post on that later!) so that she would be distracted just long enough to get a photo with all the ornaments on her and not in her hands

written by Rajaram S