Arnav and Bho-Bho

One of the fist things a kid learns to say is "papa" or "mama". The first words for Arnav, incidentally, were "bho-bho".

Aparna used to take Arnav on evening walks right from the time Arnav was 3 months young. And India being India, there is no shortage of dogs wherever you go. For a 3 month young kid, who sees noone but his mom and dad day in and day out, dogs were a welcome change. He was readily fascinated by dogs and till this day his fascination continues.

Arnav liked bho-bhos so much that for the entire first year he used to call anything and everything as bho-bho. Thankfully, he is now beginning to understand that not everything is called a "bho-bho".

Arnav has more toy-dogs in his cupboard than all the other toys put together. In fact hardly a month goes by when he does not get a new toy-dog.

Aparna, on the other hand, hates dogs like anything. Any dog within one square mile of her freaks her out. So although Arnav loves dogs, I am pretty sure, he will never be able to have a pet dog. He will have to make-do with his bho-bho pet toys only :-)

By the way, which should be Arnav's favorite cartoon character?
For all those who read Raj Comics, the answer is obvious - Doga!

Arnav's visit to Delhi

The reason for the long silence was that we had been to Delhi last weekend. Me and Vaibhav, having never been to Delhi before, were very excited about the visit. For Arnav though, it meant nothing more than disruption in his daily schedule. By the end of the trip he got positively bored and was very happy to be in Hyderabad again.

Weekends for Arnav mean a long drive in the car (where he loves to fall asleep), visit to a park/playground (where he tries to climb on swings and see-saws, tries to chase dogs and meet other small kids), and yes - shopping (where he loves testing the everything-in-its-place attitude of Shoppers Stop employees) .

Being from Hyderabad, Arnav is used to sleeping in the car. No, it is not the laid back and carefree nature of the city - it is the bumpy roads and the start-stop traffic. Not to mention the famous Hyderabadi auto-wallas who think they are the "king of the road". All these helps in keeping the car rocking always - and Arnav is pretty used to falling asleep due to this. But in Delhi - the ride is anything but rocking. The smooth roads and disciplined traffic was a rude shock to Arnav. Poor Arnav - he had to miss all his afternoon siestas!

All the places we visited seemed to have more foreigners than Indians. While the foreign tourists went ga-ga and admired the great Indian tradition, Arnav was appalled at the lack of swings, see-saws and other thing he is so used to seeing in the playground. Neither were there any small kids to hang out with. Worst of all places like Qutub-minar, India Gate, Jantar Mantar and Lotus Temple do not have dogs!

The entire weekend was spent sight-seeing and we could not do any shopping. Poor Arnav - this meant no shopping carts to run crazy with, and no neatly stacked items to ransack!

All-in-all Arnav had a poor first impression of the capital. We plan to be more careful during out upcoming visit to Kerala.