Who I am, What I do and answers to Qs like that

Thanksgiving - thats one of the most important holidays for Americans. People travel long distances to spend the holiday with their family. And have Turkey. Stuffed Turkey. Tata and Mamma went to Venu Tata's house for Thanksgiving. Ofcourse, without the turkey. Ravi Mama and Rama Atta flew to visit us. A family get-together, you could say. I haven't seen them in almost 3 months - and wow, they HAVE changed a lot. They seemed shorter, atleast to me. Not sure if it was a case of me growing taller or they getting shorter. Does that matter? You could very well imagine the excitement this small get-together caused. Rama Atta brought me a gown that she stitched herself. Here is a picture of me in that gown. I was fussed over and fussed over. Good Ravi Mama and Rama Atta. I love your gifts. I love you too. As if this excitement was not enough, I also had to deal with the Black Friday fever. Well, not fever in the literal, thermal sense - but figuratively. In the US, Thanksgiving is ce...

I started this blog wanting to give all of you an insight into "Who I am, What I do and answers to Questions like that". But how can I do that when I myself do not know the answers for these questions? Who am I? The simple answer is that I am Lasya Dhulipala and I am the daughter of so and so. But beyond that? Am I Indian? Am I an American of Indian descent? These questions might appear philosophical. But I have been hearing Nanna and Amma discussing these so much that I cannot ignore them any further. Since I was born in the US, it seems I acquired US citizenship by birth. Since I was born to Indian parents, it seems I acquired Indian citizenship by descent. No problems till here. But the problems started when my parents wanted to get me a passport - because we want to go to India next summer. If I get myself an Indian passport, I can go to India fine - but cannot return to the US. Why? Because I will not get a US visa as I am a US citizen. If I get myself a US passport, I w...

I achieved something! I mean yet again!!! I managed to achieve locomotion. In other words, I managed to move from one position to another without anyone's help. I know, I know. It might not seem like a big thing to all of you. But this is a huge milestone for me. The first of my many steps (or should I say, rolls) towards independence. I rolled over from my back to my tummy. I have been trying to do that for a long time. But my hand kept getting stuck under my tummy. So I was not able to complete the process. But I guess with the cereal and all that, I am now strong enough to pull my hand out of my tummy's way. Once I rolled over from my back to tummy, the next step was to roll over from tummy to back. After a couple of failed attempts, I managed to do that too. During this process I found something interesting about me. Looks like I am a rightie. I can roll over only to one side (as of now) - right. So, I roll over from back to tummy to back to tummy and so on. A little labori...

Cereals. Everyone likes cereals. Cornflakes, wheat flakes, oatmeal, porridge, Cocoa pebbles. There are so many varieties that you all know about. You might have seen all of them. You might have tried atleast some of them. There is something that you have missed - and that I have tried. Gerber Rice cereal . Well, do not worry. You have not missed much. In fact you will be glad you did not try this one. This rice cereal is nothing but finely ground rice, just a little finer that rice ravva. I am sure this cereal was invented by another grown-up. This joins car-seats, diapers etc as inventions by grown-ups with no complete disregard for the comfort of children. If you want to know how much I liked the rice cereal, here it is. Now that I have confided my feelings about rice cereal, I am sure you would not be surprised to know that a) It takes me almost 30 min to eat a couple of spoons b) I give Amma a hard time whenever I see a spoon in her hand So much so that, Amma and Nanna have fully u...

After an exciting morning, I was looking forward to an even more exciting evening. After I woke up from my afternoon siesta, it was time to get into the other costume. This one was a "Little Angel" dress - complete with wings, aura and a wand. Nanna returned from office, I was strapped into my car seat and off we were to his friends' houses. But what Nanna and Amma did not account for were my wings - actually not MY wings, but the wings of my costume. They weren't flexible like the ones on my Tulip Fairy costume. Instead they were hard and made it tough for me to fit into the car seat. Most of you who have been following my blog are well aware of my feelings towards car seats - so what happened wouldn't come as a surprise to you. The house that we were going to was a good 15-20 min away. So, by the time we reached our first stop, I was already a crying angel. The wand went away and the halo followed. The wings still remained - and my crying continued. It wasn'...

Halloween , as most of you know, is celebrated on the 31st of October. The money spent for this day is second only to Christmas. Halloween has its roots in the West European (W-E) belief that evil spirits like sweets or candy. And fear of evil spirits is, of course, universal and culture-independent. Children, being as smart as we are, try to make the most out of this situation. We dress up as evil spirits (sometimes due to logistical reasons we might not appear so funny. More about that later) and try to scare the living daylights out of adults. Having been indoctrinated by the evil spirit - candy relationship, adults give candy to anyone/anything who/that resembles an evil spirit. In the spirit of this tradition (pun was intentional), my non-Western-European (n-W-E) parents decided to make the most (candy) out of this W-E belief. As an initial investment, they went to the local BabiesRUs shop and bought me 2 Halloween dresses which were on sale. These dresses didn't look bad for ...