Whenever the sisters from Powai convent meet Femin chettan, they will have only one subject to talk about; Agnes, our Aggie. It is because Aggie now goes to the play school runs by the sisters and her talks become big-talks around there and among all who know Aggie.

Deena sister revealed the latest Aggie-talk to Femin chettan yesterday. After seeing the Sister in the same nunnery uniform every day, Aggie couldn't help pouring her heart out to Sister sometime last week. As she thought the Sister doesn’t have as many clothes to change everyday, she had an offer in mind; "Sister I will ask my amma to get you new clothes when she comes from the US"

What to tell back, the sister just nodded.

She was on a month's trip to Washington with her Appa, to meet her Amma, Jilly. In her own words, her schedule also contained a glance of 'Obama uncle' but she told us that he did not come out while she was out there. (This is what Femin chettan made her to believe, I think).

After coming back to India, though she did not have much of a 'Jet Lag' as expected by us, she had enough of something we felt as an 'Eat Lag' as she was busy trying a Fork on a chapatti.

What attracted us more was not anything above, but her recent multilingual talk-attempts as she approached one by one. While she asked 'Paani' to her maid, 'Water' was that she asked to her Aunty. And it was 'Vellam' she wanted from Ebie.

As Aggie-talk goes on like this, let's wait for something funnier very soon.

Straight to the point; Wishing all who read this, a Grand, Phenomenal New Year with astonishing things all around through out the year! I'm sure, this will be a remarkable year in your wonderful life!

Last year, I have had a merry-ride through out the night, with 3G, (our Sreeji) on my Bike's back seat. We went almost till Bandra, landed up at St. Andrew's Church and thus could attend the New Year Mass, and continued to roam around the place till early morning having multiple Masala teas. We wanted to have a fun-raid alongside the Juhu shores, but there was some riot going on during those wee hours and hence we dissuaded the plan. The next day, papers showed the news of two young women who got molested at Juhu by a group of men and that had caused the riot-like situation. A large number of men had been arrested.

The year before that, I have had a New Year toast with my Aunty and Uncle at Kalina. We have always shared a toast for all major occasions and Aunty had a special charm to 'Okay' my toast plans for New Year, as she would get new Glass tumblers from the wine-shop as gift on New Year sale.

This year, I'm with Ebie, which is something I never thought of an Year before. We went for New Year Mass together, came back and watched the Fireworks at Skyline Villa, where are staying temporarily. We invited 3G for today's lunch. Ebie cooked one of the tastiest Prawns curries I ever had and later we watched a movie, Kanchipurathe Kalyanam, which turned out to be stupid time pass.

The New Year celebrations are over, but not the New Year. Most of it is still there and we are only at it's tooth's side. So let's take it to heart and treat all the days in this new year as New Year Days. Lets celebrate each day.

One more point. A New Year is, was and has been expected, but not all the happenings in it. There would be goods and bads. There might be be all nights and no days. There could be rivers stop flowing and mountains dancing. But let's be cool and be prepared. Lets be strong in mind, but easy in demeanor.

Of late, Mount Abu became a Character in my life! It was a pleasure trip planned at the end of mounting pressure from Ebie of not taking her to any of the worthy-to-be-seen places! I was not willing in the beginning as my purse was not as heavy as I thought sufficient to take us happily. But it turned out to be an exciting trip to the only tip of Rajasthan!

You know, sometimes things fall in places like you have dreamed of. It was like such an experience for us, with a last minute planning. Our decision of not booking a hotel online proven to be right, as we got a lovely hotel at a cost we could afford. Hotel Vrindhavan was such a warm place amidst the frozen Abu town. The people were very friendly and helpful.

I noticed that Abu is not such a place like Ooty or any other tourist spot notorious for people cheating. Couple of hundred bucks popped up from my pocket and were about to fall down and one old Abu street-seller just shouted out and alarmed me. Where else could we see it?

Monkeys played pranks, as we had some Peanuts in hand. I just threw the packet in my hand but the Monkey wanted more. I saw that it was staring at Ebie and she was staring back confused. I caught that in a jiffy and threw it again. Ebie stared at me like a monkey-in-trap.

In the nights it was colder than a freezer, and we used almost all the clothes on the first night itself. Bathing; we never thought of it till the third day.

I had seen this Air-gun seller, and bought one, mainly of curiosity and secondly, thinking of gifting it to my father. He would use it to drive-off those wild-cats those come to stay at the rooftop and pee in the nights, or might show it to a robber if ever one lands up, and lie that 'hands up, or it could kill him!'

On return, we had to board our train early in the morning, and we got a taxi booked through Vrindhavan at 5 A.M. We came to Ahmedabad and spent almost 7 hours there before boarding our Volvo for Mumbai. In the meantime, we went to Kakaria Carnival, a famous city-fest there. We went to the Zoo and met all those unlucky animals. What took my attention was the mirror fixed at the Snake-home. 'Enemy of Snakes' it was titled. We saw ourselves in the mirror, and realized that we too never liked snakes around like others. We stopped thinking about it and came out with a heavy-heart.

We reached Mumbai the next day morning, with a mind full of Mount Abu!

I was talking about this incident to Ebie yesterday.

Till 8th standard we had to learn stitching as a part of our school curriculum at my High School in Edamon.

The stitching teacher came with a beautiful kerchief she had stitched, and wanted us to re-iterate the same. I did not like the period overall but half-heartedly I had to do this assignment.

Keeping the cloth on my lap, I took long time to stitch as half as my exceptional buddies did, and at the end, it was more than a fun.

I tried to raise the cloth and show my work to the teacher. Bad, it was also raising my shirt! Oh Sad, I realized with a senseless smile that all these time, I was stitching on my shirt that fell on my lap while sitting.

The 'rewinding' kept me busy for another period.

Agnes Femin wants her son to cry. Every time. Not just cry, he should cry aloud. He should not only just cry sometimes, but also skew his face in a particular way, with eyes reduced and lips glued on one another so that it should show him up in the pinnacle of some agony.

By now, you must have assumed a mad mistress of early forties, hating her son for no reasons and keeps on pestering him. But you go wrong as the curtain raises and I introduce a new character in this LIFE of mine, who is none other than our cute little babe Aggy!

Agnes Femin is her formal brand name! She is my niece, my wife's brother's daughter, of almost thirty months age.

Aggy is the only daughter of her parents and the apple of everyone's eyes. But some time back, she was on the lookout for somebody, whom she can love. Love like the way she is being loved; a baby in her hands. Her parents gave her many dolls. She tried acting like a mom to them, but they did not respond ultimately. And that's when I came into her life.

Don't know whether she has assessed me as a child, somehow, on a fine day, she has adopted me as her baby without my knowledge. She would call me "Unni" with a cute sweet-coated mother's tongue. No hassles, I have started helping her with nice baby-cries and instant-insistences and other symptoms every child shows. But she was more demanding; she wanted my cries to be louder so that she shouldn't feel like deserting her child and leave for office! She wanted me not to eat with my hands, so that she could rightfully feed her child, (in a thousand spoons). She wanted me to sleep on her lap, so that her baby would feel most comfortable.

That was where we started.

One day, I did not show up for the act. It was Eby's (my wife, synonym; Shelby, Steffy & more.) turn. She had played her tactics on Aggy so that it came out to be great fun. As her 'mother' approached her with her 'demands' Eby used the chance so grandly. She asked this restless mother to do that and this and those and these, and Aggy had to really run around to keep her ‘child’ entertained! Finally Aggy said, "Stop! Now you be the mother, and I will be your Unni"

Fun of all times!

Hope that you are not in a bad mood! I mean, I was just asking how you are.. No, Oh! God, nothing, please don’t look like that, it’s killing me.

Cool a lot down, and I’ll tell you this; I met this girl, Ebie. Yeah, I mean I met her before getting engaged to her… and and and way before marrying her… hey I’m telling you, yeah, You!

Long time, said nothing, and on a fine morning like this, when I alight here like a Sinosauropteryx in front of you and saying that I got married, don’t you have any feels? You died my blog? Okay, you just hide, but not died, I believe.

Let me stop pretending that I’m apologizing. I actually am apologizing for not keeping track, but let me tell you, I have been thoroughly occupied with my pre and post-marital miracles.

Listen to me, I will ward off your scuffle with a narration of what happened last Sunday.

My second week in church after marriage, and my forth of fifth week altogether. You can assume, how well I would be known in the church and how my matters would matter to them within such a short time. Very few people knew me personally, and some remembered only my face.

After the church, seeing my wife standing beside me, one uncle asked, ‘Is she your sister’? Huh, he did not know that I got married. He had seen me before in the church, but not with a girl beside me. I did tell him what had happened to me 

Ebie started to laugh all the way, rewinding the same question, and saying, Oh peace, at least I don’t look like one married woman..’ I stopped walking.. and asked ‘what?’

‘Yeah, that’s what’! She replied.

‘No, I don’t think so, he actually would have meant whether you were my elder sister, still not married and begot kids, but not staying with your husband and still bothering your younger brother!!”

Poor Ebie, her face was shining like that of a devil in no-moon night!!