Fathers day gifts from family

Most of the families we know went out to some beach, local park etc. We did not go out today. Went for walks around the block, did yoga, took pictures and that was it.  Really did not know how crowded it would be in those places and wanted to go next week when it would be less crowded. 

I love my family for their support when it comes to yoga. They might not all be doing yoga with me, but they do support me immensely. 

They watch me with amusement as I keep trying to do the same thing over and over again. 

Usually there would be a yoga class on Sunday morning at BYSJ and they would give our a rose to take back for all dads and we would take a picture. The missing years are ones where I had to catch a 1PM United Flight to China on Fathers day.. 

Today we had to make do with a small rose from our own backyard but the kids obliged with a picture and even gave me permission to post it ! That is two old photos to recreate in one day!

Then after I finished the 90 minute class, they helped me with a little demo where I wanted to see how close to "sitting in the chair, not below the chair" the awkward pose was.. and if I did indeed straighten my back. It was weird to do this.. but if you have family volunteers this is worth trying to get a feel for what this pose should be like..

The end result was okay.. Need to do a lot more exercise to get rid of some belly fat. Sitting all day in the same place in meetings does not help that much. There was one yoga teacher who would stand only on his big toes and go ballerina style on this.. in another 5 years will try it.

This has been a good day! Wishing all of the dads out there a happy Fathers day. I am not too thrilled that my dad is in Chennai and I cannot even go see him right now if I want to. Hopefully that changes soon. 

My wife and kids made my day!

International Yoga Day

Wishing all of you some Yoga (or other exercise if you are one of those people who spend more time debating and talking about Yoga, its origins, who started it, who it belongs to today etc. etc. and spends less time doing yoga or exercising) on this day. 

We definitely have more daylight today.. so go use that extra daylight to get exercise.

Sometimes worlds collide and Yoga day and Fathers day are one and the same.. and when the Bifrost opens, I can get to emotionally appeal to the kids to take that photo again.

The darlings did it with a smile!

So

the little one outgrew that shirt and it went to goodwill already.. but Jr. and me still have the same things to wear! 

I was surprised that they could both get into Lotus pose.. thought they would give up! Once they got in the lifting part was not hard.  

Wish they are a lot more active going forward and don't end up having to find Yoga at a much older age.. it is right in front of them now!

Go get some workout done! I for one wish BYSJ opens soon and I can sweat freely for 90 minutes and detox. It has been 99 days of doing yoga alone at home with audio recordings or zoom classes and I made it 90 days out of 99. Given all the craziness that surrounds us, Yoga helps for the 90 minutes and a few hours after class or sometimes an entire day if I just do the yoga and stay away from any electronic devices! 

Based on my personal experience, Yoga works! 

I am not trying to sound like a spokesperson for "alldaysmatter".. but then again, if we treated our parents right, maybe there wouldn't be a "fathers" or "mother" day which seems to be a lowest common denominator and a bare minimum towards parents. We live in a culture where Fathers get a card once a year and that is deemed the right thing to do. Happy there is a day designated for this to bring awareness, but IDY is not the one day you do Yoga and forget about exercise for the rest of the year. I dont want it to end up like another Jan 1st for a lot of folks!

Maybe a day for Yoga is what is needed right now to bring visibility. Eventually, everyday will be yoga day. 

The Turkish desi..

San was recommended a Turkish watch by one of her friends and she started watching it.  She had just started and I walked past the family room and said "are you watching something in Turkish?" .. she was surprised that I could recognize it was Turkish by just walking past to the kitchen..

It was a cute chick flick called "Her Yerde Sen". After spending 2 hours watching it, I thought it would come to a happy ending and it kind of went to titles abruptly..

Then she sheepishly tells me it is a "serial" and that was the first episode.. There are 22 such episodes 2 hours long. I get migraines if I watch TV for more than 3-4 hours in a row but this was cute and we hardly watch anything together.. 

So I beg her to watch one episode with me every night.. we were okay for two days.. then the long weekend hit and she just went to episode 18 in two days while I was still at 4! She binge watched the damn thing by fast forwarding 2 hour episodes to under an hour. . . she insisted I do the same.. and I gave her a long lecture on why fast forwarding rom coms to a kiss is as bad as fast forwarding Jackie Chan as he makes all the prep moves before he strikes.. you know the action is going to be amazing, but watching him setup the strike is as important as the 15 seconds of action itself.. the whole buildup of the drama is lost if you fast forward.. 

I am going to watch 1 hour a day and maybe finish this in another 16 days without fast forwarding.. so yes, I am spending the long weekend watching a Turkish serial! 

Then came the part where I surprised my wife with some Turkish vocab.. even the kids were surprised.. everytime I show any proficiency in a language the folks at home automatically assume it has to do with a girl.. 

So here is the back story.. One of my close grad school friends Sedat was from Turkey and we used to live in different floors of the same Apartment complex. It was me, a Bengali guy and my Turkish friend taking turns making Tea (Tea bag tea, Turkish tea, Varanasi Chai) in someones apartment every day and we would watch Star Trek and Simpsons back to back for an hour on week days. A lot of great memories.. 

we would also teach each other phrases on what things were called in Tamil, Bengali and Turkish. Sedat thought it would be a good idea to teach me enough Turkish to pass me off as Turkish in one of his get togethers in his apartment. It was an experiement or prank of sorts. He used to give me cheat sheets to practice and I found some of them to show my wife and kids! (in the process I also found a lot of old photos etc. which was a trip down memory lane). 

there were many such sheets..can't find the rest of them. He taught me conversational Turkish and all I had to do was pronounce every word correctly.. think I did him proud by passing off as a Turkish dude.. He always thought I was a good student. Had no idea of the detailed words but could repeat entire sentences from memory.. 

The good thing is that I can always come up with intersting stories that surprise my kids.. 

Yeah kids.. your dad was cool once!