But, Sigmalogy has its beginning somewhere in my childhood.

When I was about 10, I dreamt of becoming an author. I held a little pencil and scribbled imagining/imitating to be a wordsmith.

It was a dream, I savoured, and was so sure about. But, nothing in the world comes in easy.

For years, I dreamt of making it happen. But, the road was rough. There was rejection. There still is. But, like they say, a writer’s journey is laden with rejection. Somehow, we learn to grow a thick skin and deal with it.

The journey has been tough and thorny but I have thoroughly enjoyed it. Today, people shake hands and say a good word or two that I feel blessed. That was when, it was time to journey to my next dream – a book.

Sigmalogy happened on a lazy summer afternoon. Sid, my son, and I were thrilled to work on this book. It is our dream – a dream that will unravel itself next week.

So,. with bated breath and a racing heart, we await the day, so, Sigma can reveal himself and share his wonderful journey with every one. We are excited but, then, we are happily excited. We are anxious – for we hope every one will love Sigma the way we do. Of course, it does feel uneasy to share Sigma but when, we think of the smiles Sigma could bring onto a lovely little face, it feels very fulfilling. Thank you Sigma for making this possible. Thanks to all the people and the fans, who have extended their support for making Sigmalogy a reality.

So, let us count down jointly, to make this happen. Sigma, we will always love you.

SIGMALOGY IS AN E-BOOK FOR KIDS.  THE E-BOOK WILL BE OUT IN SEPT 2011.  A FREE POEM HAS BEEN POSTED EXCLUSIVELY FOR THE VISITORS OF THIS WEBSITE.   YOU CAN FIND IT IN Jr. FICTION.

COME, ENJOY THE BEAUTIFUL JOURNEY WITH SIGMA, THE BIG TED!

Attitude is all

According to Dr Greene, a holiday with kids is a time to build family memories.  It is a time to de-stress and you can do it only if you change your expectations of your holiday. Many times, a lot of things may not go on schedule. The earlier you come to terms with  it, the better. Do not worry too much about managing the kids. On a holiday, it is only fair to let children be themselves without fretting about rules or curfew hours.

Build interest

One of the most important things to remember is to get your child interested in the holiday destination. Strangely, few parents invest time and effort in getting their  children excited about the holiday, and many times kids just tag along, clueless about where they are going or what they will be doing. Here’s what you should do:

*Talk about the the destination and discuss places of interest before embarking on the journey.
*Pique their interest. Shriya (7) still fondly remembers the peacock that was hatched by a hen! Shriya’s mom, Neeta Shetty, remembered this little detail when she took Shriya, who was only four years old at that time, to a small village called Permude in Mangalore to visit her grandmother. That story not only made Shriya look forward to the trip, she also talked about it for years!
*Introduce the child to the destination. Show her pictures or videos of the places you are planning to visit.

Pack smart!

There are so many things that are a must and others that you can do without. Here are a few pointers:
*Pack something that is related to your destination. It could be an interesting book or a toy, like a Channapatna doll, that can fascinate your little one and keep her busy during the journey.
*If you have board games designed for travel, like a magnetic chess board, take them along.  A friend of mine would always carry some unopened gifts and give them to her kids when they complained of boredom.
*Let your little one pack a bag on her own and carry it. Kids are always excited to mimic adults!
*If you are travelling with an infant, make sure that you carry enough diapers and baby food to last a day.
*When packing your child’s clothes, avoid light colours and go the denim way. You can make a sturdy pair of denims last several days with different t-shirts.

Wheels within wheels

Sometimes, you have to make do with the transport available. Otherwise, make your choice so that kids enjoy it. It is a little trick to build on holiday excitement.
*Ensure comfort and safety. For me, a train journey always does the trick. Sid, my son, is now seven years old. From the time he was a year old, Sid has shown a great love for trains. So, I include one train trip in our holiday plan. Sometimes, the train ride makes the trip a lot more fun than the holiday itself.
*Make your trip memorable by using local transport, be it a tram, a horse cart or a rickshaw. It makes the holiday a lot more special because a tram ride or a cable car ride is something that the child rarely experiences back home.

Home away from home

The hotel you book will be an extension of your home for the next few days or weeks. So, it needs to be comfortable and clean.
*Choose a child-friendly hotel. This means a hotel that does not have too many white table restaurants or very loud music.
*Check if the hotel comes with a swimming pool and a baby pool. Many hotels just forget that kids could be a part of their guest list.
*There are some hotels that have special activities for kids. Do surf the Internet before you make your bookings.
*Some hotels have special restaurants that have a themed menu for children. We once stayed in a hotel that served spaghetti in tomato sauce, which they cleverly called ‘Witches’ Wormy Meal’. I will never forget the grin on my son’s face and the pace with which the food disappeared from his plate!

Take a chill pill!

It is extremely important to remind yourself that you are meant to relax on a holiday and not run a marathon. Most of us fret that we might miss out on something special and pack too much activity into a vacation.

*Remind yourself that it is all right if you happen to miss out on some must-see sights of the city.
*Every city has something to offer kids. Such places/ activities may not be a tourist attraction, but as long as your kids love it, it could be worth a dekko.
*Don’t plan back-to-back sightseeing. Pace it out instead.
*Plan the vacation with what you like and what your kids would like. The idea is to strike a balance, so that everyone has a good time.

Capture memories

A vacation is all about family time. So, when your spouse is pretending to sleep and your kids are indulging in mayhem, you are actually gathering precious memories. Therefore, it is not the time to fret about rules, healthy eating or sleep-time patterns. Remember:
*Holiday time is a learning experience for the entire family.
*Grab the opportunity to teach your kids about new cultures, new cuisines and interesting people.
*Teach your kids the local language and encourage them to speak it. It is bound to make them feel welcome in a strange place.
*Help them make a scrap book so that they can treasure their holiday.

The most important thing to remember is that a vacation with children is a whole new experience. It is a great opportunity to introduce them to the sights, sounds and experiences they will not get at home. It is also a wonderful opportunity to bond and have fun. Happy holidays!

Steer clear of the tourist trap

So, you have an itinerary and are ready to travel? Here are some things you should do:
*Buy a local map. With a good road map, you can read street names and look for landmarks that define the city. Finding your way around the city using a map is a fantastic way of chancing upon the place’s best-kept secrets!
*Use public transport. Most tourists take taxis. Taxis are expensive and you will never know your way around. Travel like the locals do and enjoy the experience. Every city’s local transport, like a tram or a tuk-tuk, adds its own charm to the place.
*Try the local cuisine. What better way to understand a culture than to taste their food? Finding your comfort food in a new city can be a time-consuming activity. It can also cost you a lot of money. Instead, get adventurous and enjoy the local fare. You might just surprise yourself!
*Don’t judge the place in haste and spend the rest of your holiday arguing that you were better off at home! Take what comes with the territory. Talk to the locals and value their recommendations. Focus on what the place has to offer and enjoy the moment.
*Visit the local museum. Contrary to Paulo Coelho’s belief, a museum is a good place to start your tour in any place. Coelho observes that museums take away time and deprive people of understanding the present. But, museums do offer a valuable peek into the past and facilitate a better understanding of the present.
*Avoid wasteful expenditure. Plan ahead, instead and book hotel, transport, visits to sanctuaries or museums, in advance. Planning also helps you avoid last-minute glitches.
*Don’t shop for souvenirs at  tourist spots. Such places are  always over-priced. Shop instead in the city or at the local markets.
*Book all your tickets in advance. Most attractions and places of tourist interest have on-line booking facilities. Many times, they offer ‘early-bird’ discounts. They even  list events for the month. By buying your tickets online, you save on money as well as precious holiday time.
*Pack a snack. When you are sightseeing, you tend to miss lunch or dinner. Spend a little time in a super market and stock up easy-to-eat snacks like sandwiches and fruit. Not only will you save time, you will also save money because eateries at tourist spots are usually expensive.
*Avoid falling into the tourist trap. There are some things that the locals will never ever do (like being at Times Square in New York on New Year’s eve). So, make sure you do your research well. It always helps.

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/161064/take-break.html

]]> http://sudaa.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/take-that-break/feed/ 0 sudaa http://sudaa.wordpress.com/2011/04/28/gulfnews-its-not-just-the-white-house/ http://sudaa.wordpress.com/2011/04/28/gulfnews-its-not-just-the-white-house/#comments Thu, 28 Apr 2011 06:30:27 +0000 sudaa http://sudaa.wordpress.com/?p=129 ]]> gulfnews : It’s not just the White House.

To see fossils in a local museum would have been the usual thing to do. But I remembered a newspaper clipping I had preserved about a dinosaur park in India. This is how our journey into the world of dinosaurs began.

It may come as a surprise that India has a treasure trove of dinosaur fossils. In fact, Raoli, a small village in Gujarat about 80 kilometers from Ahmedabad, has the third largest number of dinosaur fossils in the world. Some of the best known dinosaurs in the world roamed on Indian soil.

On Sid’s birthday we drove from Ahmedabad to Balasinore, a town close to Raoli. It took nearly an hour to get out of the city limits but once we were out, our vehicle sped smoothly on well laid roads. Our drive along the countryside was beautiful. Occasionally we came across a sign board reading “Balasinore Dainasor Park,” which never failed to bring a smile to our faces.

Paleontologists have found that at least seven types of dinosaurs roamed on these lands, including the mighty T Rex. The latest find has been that of Rajasaurus Narmdensis, a previously unknown dinosaur. This dinosaur has been reconstructed fully and is on display in a museum in Calcutta. A model of this can be also be found in the Indroda Fossil and Dinosaur Park in Gandhinagar, Gujarat. Enough fossils have been recovered to suggest that both herbivore and carnivore dinosaurs ambled through the entire Narmada basin. These dinosaurs disappeared from the face of the earth about 65 million years ago. Scientists attribute the extinction to various reasons. But this site is believed to have been destroyed by a meteor, called the Shiva Crater, that was discovered beneath the Indian Ocean, west of Mumbai, India.After a three-hour drive, we reached the Garden Palace Hotel in Balasinore which is the ancestral home of the royal family of Balasinore, now converted to a Heritage Hotel. We were welcomed by the lovely Princess Aliya Bibi. Aliya is the daughter of Nawab Mohammad Salabat Khan, the current descendant of the royal family, and she looks after the affairs of this beautiful hotel. Over the years she has also become a dinosaur lover and an expert of sorts.
We were grateful to have Aliya as our tour guide because the fossil site would have been impossible to find on our own. There are no directions or proper roads that lead to the site which was discovered by the Geological Survey of India in 1981.

Aliya’s unceasing efforts to protect the site from vandalism and theft have resulted in the government putting up a fence of barbed wire and also deploying a lone security guard. In spite of this, the people in the nearby villages do not realize that they are sitting on a national treasure. Children play and cattle graze, destroying some of the most precious fossils existing on earth.

As we travelled over rugged roads to reach the fossil site, we saw building construction underway to our left. On completion, it will be the first of its kind in the country—a dinosaur interpretative centre. The proposed plan also has a dinosaur theme park.

Two huge rusted iron gates welcomed us help the feeling that we were driving over brittle bones and crushing them.

We followed Aliya around the fossil site, feeling elated that we were walking on the land where dinosaurs once roamed. “Every time I come here, I find a new fossil. Because this area is so huge it is simply impossible to gather all of them,” she told us. This encouraged us to look for some fossils of our own. We picked up rocks hoping to lay our hands on something previously unseen.

Aliya gave us some pointers. “Fossils are fibrous in nature,” she explained, pointing to the lines of a possible arm bone of a dinosaur.

Having learnt this secret, we were eager to explore the land.

“If only I could find a T Rex’s tooth,” my son said hopefully.

“Let’s keep looking,” I encouraged him.

Aliya pointed to a pink striated rock. We saw the lines that ran smoothly along the pink structure. That was what primarily distinguished a fossil from ordinary stone. This one was the bone of a limb.

There were more fossils of bones and skin. “We need specialized machinery to extract these, so it has to wait,” she said. The highlight of the visit was the fossilized remains of the internal organs and the backbone of a dinosaur. It was mesmerizing to realize that something so soft as the insides of a dinosaur could have withstood the test of time. The backbone prompted us to freeze the moment for a memorable vacation picture.

We lingered on for a long time, watching our steps, not wanting to step on something precious. We studied some of the rocks hoping to stumble onto a treasure we could pick up, but it was not to be.
On the other side of the park were three models of dinosaurs. Made from plaster of Paris by local art students, the models had disproportionate dimensions. A temple stood next to these reptiles, as if to shower protection on the site. On the way back to the hotel, Aliya promised us to show us her personal fossil collection.

Back at the resort, we freshened up and had lunch with Aliya. She spoke at length about her experiences. When we could hold our curiosity and patience no longer, she showed us a round rock.

“This is a dinosaur egg,” she declared, holding the rock and beaming with pride. The egg had an interesting story. One of the villagers who had found the egg was using it to grind masalas because of its shape. Eventually, better awareness of fossils led to the stone being turned over to Aliya, but the egg fossil had lost some of its outer covering by then.

We took turns to hold the egg and look closely. Although we were holding something millions of years old, we realized we could have easily mistaken it for a rock.

Sid wondered aloud, “What if we could magically put the rock in a time machine and send it back?” Back in the car, my thoughts lingered on the magic of life, evolution, and the magnificent giants, while Sid continued to dream about time travel. We started playing a game to see how many dinosaur names we knew. Halfway through, Sid had another idea. He started to make up some dinosaur names, because he wanted to be ready—ready to grow up and find new dinosaurs of his own.

Editor’s note: Geologists recently found a clutch of fossilized eggs in what could be India’s largest dinosaur nesting site in Ariyalur district in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The eggs are believed to be about 65 million years old.

http://www.indiacurrents.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=aaa343ff2c2501305d9269ddb4871cb7

• By Sudha Subramanian, Special to Gulf News
• Published: 00:00 November 29, 2010
• 

Sid was in an investigative mood this summer. More so because his curiosity had kicked in. He wanted to know how bad guys look. “It would be simple then,” he observed, “All I will have to do is to avoid them and I will be safe.” That made perfect sense.

He looked at his dad wide-eyed and asked him quite innocently: “Have you ever seen a robber? You could describe him to me. At least, I will have an idea.”

His dad could only concede, “Well, I have never seen one. Sorry.”

Sid followed us obediently wherever we went but was always vigilant. He wanted to spot the ‘bad guy’ in the crowd. The only challenge he faced repeatedly was that he didn’t know who it was. We wished we could see the figure Sid carried in his head of a bad guy so that we could understand him better.

Many times I was convinced that Sid thought that anybody with a huge moustache or a well-built man is the person to be wary of.

I remember my own childhood with my imaginative scary people. I had thought that a person with an eye patch or a huge mole on the chin was the guy I had to be alert about. I was convinced that they carried a little knife around and would take away my precious toys if I made noises in the night.

Sometimes, when I heard my own breath in the night, I held it and then slowly exhaled and inhaled without as much as a stir. I wondered why the clocks always ticked so loud at night. But then I would drift to sleep and the scary thoughts would evaporate.

It was only when I was about 10 that I saw a real burglar. There was a theft in the neighbourhood and the man was soon caught. He was paraded in the whole town. That was a field day for us children. We saw, for the first time, policemen, handcuffs and a real culprit. We were thrilled but equally scared. For a long time, the story was the talk of the town. But, that day, I realised that people who commit crime were ordinary men and women. They could be anyone in a crowd and we would never know. But, for Sid to understand this simple truth of life would be a huge step.

Obstacles

Looking back, I see that day as an eye- opener for more than one thing. It has a deeper meaning. If only we knew how bad guys looked, life would be a lot different. Yet, living life is not about knowing what the days have to offer. It is not about the obstacles, the hurdles we have to cross.

Living with the unknown has its very own highs and lows. It has the thrill of accomplishment. As we pick up the thread and wonder where it leads us, we learn to share and care besides learning to laugh and cry.

Yes, we can never tell who the bad guy is or how he looks. Yet, even as I try very hard to tell Sid that it is only normal looking people who make mistakes, he is still looking for a hairy giant who can hold children by their hair and give a nasty loud laugh.

Well, there is a certain magic in living with that imagination. I guess I will wait for the day when Sid’s imaginative figure will be dispelled. Sid should live his childhood in bliss. It would be a rude shock for a little kid to know that in the present world we live, the most horrid crimes are sometimes committed by a familiar face.

http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/looking-for-the-bad-guy-1.719898