Conversations

Morning over breakfast this took place with the elder1

L1: Appa.... I want to go to a boarding school.

Me: Well .. they might not take you as a boarder in your current school(her school has a few boarders) as we stay in the same city. Perhaps we can send you to a good boarding school in Yercaud or Ooty.

L1: Sheepishly ..... oh no ... I dont want to be too far from you ..

Swine flu

The pune teen who died recently turned out to be the class mate of my nieces' neighbour. This bit of news was frightening.

Till now with no known instance of a death related to swine flu - the danger never really concerned us. 10 days ago when the elder1 was down with fever and body pain - it never even occurred to have her checked for swine flu, and neither did the doctor suggest anything of that sought - the most we feared was chikungunya.

But, this latest bit of news has set the alarm bells ringing.

As parents , What are we supposed to do. What precautions can we take. Easily, children are the most vulnerable section as they have lesser resistance, plus , they come in contact with a lot many other children.

Do we refrain from sending them to school ? Especially considering that the current weather is ideal for the spread of flu's and colds.

To start with I am trying to keep myself fully informed about what to look for in the symptoms and just plain being vigilant. The good part is that it is curable - provided if detected early. The bad part is that most of its symptoms are very similar to the symptoms of other common flus.

Here a few links on the pandemic :

1.http://www.swinefluindia.com/

2. Indian preperations

3. wikipedia - Asia

4.bbc news

Do it once

I have a friend from college who in his entire 4 year stay never touched a cigarette.
While all other lesser mortals like, yours truly , fell into from one vice to the other - wallowed in a life of debauchery , so to say - our man stood out like an epitome of discipline and straight forward living.

Today, I got in touch with him after a long gap - and I was in for a surprise . We were on call and I casually enquired what he was doing - and he mentioned he was out for a smoke. Apparently our good friend has turned out to be a regular smoker.

That set of a train of thought. As to how this gent while all others were experimenting with life, while in their late teens and early twenties, - was an example to us on restrained living , after 20 years has got the habit. Call it time lag or phase difference or whatever - .

For close to a year now I have been coaxing him to come on Facebook and his standard response is - that he is prejudiced against the social networking sites.

But I am sure ( and he agrees ) that after we have finished our experimenting with all social sites and moved on .. our Friend might one fine day - discover Facebook.