Last weekend, Sid experienced his first train journey as Laks, Sid & I accompanied Madhuri & Rahul to Bangalore. All of us left on the Friday (Jun 24) night and spent five good days there. We happened to do a lot of shopping, eat out and also spent an evening with Jagadish, Krithika & Jaagruthi. Everything was so pleasant with Anu and Abhi playing the perfect courteous host by tolerating the chaos and pandemonium we were creating at their home. Amidst all this, Sid quietly got past his double century on Sunday (Jun 26) - here is how he got to his hundred.

When we left, the biggest worry to Laks & me was how would Siddharth cope with the train travel. What if he cries all night? What if he doesn't sleep at all? We were anyway prepared to sit up all night if he refused to sleep as long as he doesn't cry and make us a big disturbance to the other passengers. Sid, being such a nice child that he has been all these days, never troubled us and slept all night peacefully in the train eventhough the train was late by more than an hour to reach Bangalore. It was a great relief to us and we didn't worry at all about the return when he again zero-troubled us. It was actually, Laks, Madhuri & me who didn't sleep for a long time in the train as we were very busy talking, talking, talking,...

The apartment where we stayed and the Bangalore climate fascinated us a lot - not a drop of sweat was felt, though it was quite sunny at times. Needless to say, that we enjoyed Madhuri's company and were laughing happily making all the fun in the world. It was wondrous to have Rahul & Sid together and enjoy their childics, though Rahul's possessiveness hurt Sid at times. We also spent a day at The Forum where Shankar also joined us for the lunch and fun.

It was very tough for me to get out of the holiday mood and get back to work on Thursday. But, I have lived up and has spent 2 good days at work though I am waiting for the weekend to come sooner.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I have now started to wear a five face rudraksha which I bought in Bangalore.

Life's getting too exciting these days with Siddharth around. He has slowly started to recognize me as well in addition to Laks & his paati. If there are Gods, they certainly would be coming down to earth just to see Siddharth smile - its so heavenly. He doesn't give us a smile or two, he does it more and keeps all of us immersed in joy. Further more, he has started to utter a few meaningful words like 'iiiinnnnnggghha', 'aaaauuuuwwwwhhh' etc. I really feel for Prabhu who is missing all these lovely little things, but he will have his chance soon as he would be losing his bachelor's degree in June 2005. Along with Prabhu, there are few others who happen to miss Siddharth and his loveliness - some for valid reasons, some for reasons which can't even be termed as one and some for the contempt on me.

I really hate it when I have to step out for work or anything else and be away from him. But, I am afterall the dad and not the mum to spend all the time with Sid. His limb movements are another delight to watch. I term them right arm legspin or left arm seamers out of my passion and others give me a stare for that. Whatever, its so fantabulous to get engaged into. His adjectiveless postures of sleeping makes me crush him to plant a kiss or two and Laks promptly shouts at me for disturbing his sleep !

Sid's sleeping schedules are as peculiar as any other child and keeps Laks & his paati awake during nights and he happily sleeps during the day time. He prefers to sleep on people's laps rather than the cushion beds. And already he has more dresses than me & Laks with lots of new dresses bought by a lot of people (major share held by Pavithra) and a lots of dresses from Jaagruthi and Athithi - yes, girl babies - they have outgrown their dresses now. Even Sid is starting to grow and quite fast at that as many shirts which looked cute and fitting last month , now look just cute !