Bend it like Beckham: Calling junior soccer enthusiasts

If more than 400 kids in Mumbai and their parents were waking up early every Saturday morning in the last few months, it was not to have leisurely breakfast and lie in front of the TV. It was not even for cricket. It was to play competitive soccer on one of the most beautiful grounds in the city – the Western Railways Association Ground.

The Junior Football Championship by Soccer Connections, Mumbai’s premier professionally run football league for kids, has forever changed the children’s sports scene in the city. Singer Shaan calls the event  “the most refreshing way to start a weekend with the family.”

More than an opportunity for the kids to play competitively, improve their soccer skills and build new ones, the JFC has become a meeting point for like-minded families who believe in an active lifestyle. The professionalism and enthusiasm of the coaches, gourmet catering for healthy (and not so healthy) breakfast / brunch and streaming music, makes it the perfect day out for the family.

Four pitches with kids aged 5 – 12 are segregated into age wise batches. Younger kids (2 to 5 years old) enjoy a special program called Soccer Tots, where they learn the basics of the game, hand-eye coordination, and to be part of a team, in a fun, non-pressure environment.

Soccer Connections also provides specialised coaching by a carefully selected team of Indian and International coaches from Italy, Brazil, Ivory Coast, Serbia etc. The Indian contingent consists of professional players and highly qualified coaches. Batch sizes are small and there are a minimum of  two coaches for 12 children to ensure maximum personal attention.

Soccer Tots, another unique and niche programme for toddlers between the age of 2.5yrs and 4yrs has been created by Soccer Connections after extensive research and internal training, adapting basic soccer training for our smallest fans and ensuring they get the maximum benefit of fun learning games and improve their agility. The props are colour and number coordinated for better learning.

The Soccer Connections concept has expanded into cities like Pune, Chandigarh and Ahmedabad. The company also has an a great community programme where they are trying to give back to society by training the Hosiarpur Village in Punjab. They have also worked with the Wockhardt Foundation of “Khel Khel Mein” and Akansha Foundation. The company also organises overseas soccer camps for kids where they can experience the very grounds and skills of their international idols (coming up is a camp at the Bobby Carlton Academy in Manchester).

In the making is Campville, a reformed, clean, 5-star version of a good old fashioned camping ground where children indulge in outdoor activities all day long.

To know more, please log on to http://www.pslg.co or our facebook presence @ http://www.facebook.com/SoccerConnections

 

 

Learning to grow down

A few days ago, while dropping Re to school, I shared an auto ride with a 12-year-old. He was charming, polite, well-mannered, and I couldn’t help thinking, “This is how I want Re to be when he grows up.” He then asked me what I did. Now this question usually makes me squirm when posed by an adult, particularly at a stage when I am ambivalent about my career (or whatever you could call it). But somehow, I was happy that he asked. I was eager to tell.

“I write,” I said. It felt good to say it in a manner that involved no legacy, no flourish, no validation. He then went on to ask me what I wrote about and that was harder to answer. “Everyday stuff,” I said, after some thought. “Marriage, children, food and things like that? But I try to make it funny.” I really wanted this boy to like me.

–“That must be hard. Humour is the hardest to write,” he said.

–“Yes,” I found myself saying. “It is.”

–“Does it make you happy?” he asked.

–“Yes.” It was a “yes” pregnant with extreme conviction, after years. It was a “yes” that set me free.

I love this boy, I thought. He just distilled the meaning of my life for me in this very short ride.

Re and I are going to have many such conversations in the years to come, I thought. This is going to be so much fun, my chirpy mind told me, while my body, still weary from broken sleep and the overtures of my child, an extremely “morning person”, did a mild grumble. I hushed it. My body is getting used to getting hushed by my mind these days.

Children are as liberating as they are limiting. On most days, I feel physically depleted by motherhood, but my mind has never been more fertile as it has been in the last three years. Re and I live in a world of green dogs, blue horses, pink hippos and cats wearing hats, and in that world, anything seems possible. Lions sleep with zebras, baby bears drive mamma bears around, fish climb up mountains, sharks have pet rhinos and cats lick dogs. I love playing along. I seem to be asking “why not” instead of “why” more often these days. I want to learn how to skate, write for children, do ballet, somersault.

Pic By Bajirao Pawar

I think we all reach that point in life when jobs and relationships make us more adult than we ever wanted to be and soon we find ourselves all grown up and nowhere to go. I was there too till I felt slightly rescued by my child. I am enjoying the growing down much more than the growing up. There’s definitely less angst. And more exclamation marks.

Very often, you also put your foot in your mouth. In a nice way. Like when Re asked me one day, while watching Shrek 2:

– “Mamma, why is Shrek beating Puss in Boots?”

– “Because he really annoyed him and that made Shrek angry.”

– “But he is a good boy, no?”

– “Yes, but sometimes, good boys do bad things too.”

I found myself thinking deeper about the treacherous dichotomy of life when Re told me one day:

– “Mamma, you are a very bad girl.”

– “Why?”

– “Because you are a good girl.”

Children have that effect. Just when you thought you had reached a dead end, along comes someone “Youer than You” and you begin to feel grateful to Dr Seuss for helping you start all over again.

So I found “me” back. I found I liked mud and water, that clothes were limiting and that norms were lacerating. I found the joy in black, my child’s favourite shade of paint. I found that horses looked good in pink and a sheep had every business to eat a lion if it wanted to. I found my body. I found dance and how to let it all go. (He had me at “You did it mamma!”). I found that there was a whole new universe in children’s books, for even a die-hard realist like me. I realised that there can never be enough oxygen. Or words. I found a little room in my head where I used to live.

(This post appeared as my column in the Indian Express Eye on 1st July, 2012)

A summer camp called life

It’s that time of the year where the only place I am legitimately allowed to take my child to is a summer camp. Or a manicured holiday destination.

Instead, I have taken a train to a new city, spending the last two weeks in a new home, eating new food, listening to new sounds, running on new grass, chatting with new voices, looking out of a new window, and breathing a new air with Re. It helps that two baby pigeons and their mommy inhabiting a flower pot in the balcony provide for the animal life Re is used to back home in the form of two felines. It also helps that he is in high testosterone zone (the friend I’m staying with has two boys) and able to give vent to his maleness — a thing much needed when you are a boy on the verge of three.

This is my summer camp. Okay, part of it. Sure, we are not learning origami or flower making, finger-painting, puppet-making, breathing or ballet like all his friends back in Mumbai. But we are smelling new smells and breathing new life and it is working like a tonic, to say the least.

Cut to a few weeks ago. “So where are you sending him?”, asked dour-faced Mommy X in the park. She meant, “Which summer camp have you enrolled him in?”

“Nowhere. We will just travel, visit places, meet people, hang out.”

“You mean you are going on a holiday?”

“Kind of.”

Summer is the time for extrapolation. When parents are set to find cues in every subtle move of their child and allow their exaggerated interpretations to take over by enrolling the child in a camp. Pretending it’s all fun and games. And that it’s the only way to keep the child “busy”. You see a little girl shimmying to Chikni Chameli (what choice does she have? It’s in every birthday party) and she is slated to be the next Katrina Kaif. Or at the very least, the next stick insect who wins the Miss World pageant. Off she goes for Bollywood dance lessons. You see a child climbing chairs and tables in the house and her mother will beam, “I think she will be a gymnast one day”. Baby gyms boom. You see a child fascinated by the somersaults of Parkour boys in the park and his mother will say “He is really kinesthetically inclined. I want to put him somewhere.” You see a child picking sticks, twigs and leaves and she will be slotted into a nature camp. A girl dressing up Barbies is a fashion designer. A child dabbling with a home video is slated to be the next Fellini. An iPad junkie is the next Steve Jobs. A splatter painter is the next Warhol. For parents who don’t have the time or the attention for detail, their children are all of the aforementioned. So, in the quest for generalisation, it’s Jack of all. And so, the creation of more dull, monochromatic versions of themselves in their children begins.

Meanwhile, Mommy Y, who is a kind of ebay mommy (a mommy who compares prices and comes up with the best value-for-money deal) soon computes that camp A charges less money for more activity and more hours than class B or C. It took me a while to figure that play was not “activity.”

I don’t know what Re is good at. Yes, he loves “shaking it all about” to “Mikeel Jackshun” or play-cooking pasta with crayons or playing “aminal aminal” with his hand puppets and line-up of rubber wildlife. Or shaking his curls and tossing them about. Or mixing and matching bangles.

“Have you got his portfolio done? He should be in ads,” says someone.

“Isn’t your husband in advertising? Why doesn’t he cast him?” says another.

“Is that your son in the Aviva commercial?,” asks a third.

“You must get him auditioned. Imagine, if he gets a break!” says another.

I think he is too young for talent. But not for texture. It might mean that I have to work harder. Also, I have enough time before I want him to be productive. Maybe, I don’t have it in me to be a tiger mommy. Maybe, what I really am is a lamb mommy — a mommy who grazes, who spends her time on reflection, who doesn’t really want to fill her child’s life with “productive activity”.

So here is the thing. What do I want him to love? Sometimes, I want it to be something I didn’t quite dabble in. So I get to live vicariously through him. Like art. Or music. But camps make me queasy. Camps make me claustrophobic. Camps are a school away from school. And how much school does a child need, really?

The last time someone saw Re shaking his wild curls to a song, he said, “That is the next Rahman. You should really get him into music.”

We will see. Until then, I am allowing him childhood.

 

(This piece first appeared as my parenting column in the Sunday Eye of the Indian Express on 22nd April 2012)

Did Picasso have boundaries?

To cross or not to cross the line

Re is on a coloring spree. It makes me happy that he has discovered the effortless strokes with oil pastels as opposed to the stubborn, unyielding rocks he had for hand-me-downs which seriously, I’d like to know which child can colour with, until he reaches the age of twelve or gets triceps (whichever is earlier).

The thing with oil pastels though, is that they are too effortless. They just have to barely make contact with you or just about touch you, and your clothes get all kinds of brush strokes, purples, pinks and greens, all mingling in glee, making a new style statement.”Yes, I am mommy to a two-year-old. I have been colored,” it seems to say.

I didn’t have this problem with those stupid earlier crayons which probably produced color if Genghis Khan held them, and poor Re always wondered if mamma would ever live up to her promise of producing a color from something that was meant to color, each time staring at his poor stubby fingers after having given them a workout with said crayons.

Now, of course, the OPU and I have pyjamas marked by Re’s artistic strokes, not to mention thighs and other body parts, and Re is spilling out of his prescribed “coloring books” and sheets onto the floor, the wall, our bodies, his, and those of the cats. The only one who doesn’t show signs of much wreckage is Nadia, since she is already all-black, and so, can camouflage.

I felt strangely ambivalent. Part of me wanted to revel in my child’s new-found interplay with color, texture and surfaces. A cheeky part of me wanted to tell him that I was not the easel or the medium. The disciplinarian in me wanted to tell him that ‘Coloring is for books,” the way they tell you in those silly books that talk about how to talk so your kids will listen. The artist in me wanted to just watch him and see where it goes.

I am still not sure who to listen to. Re on the other hand has built his own defence in support of his artistic exploits. Everytime he colors a surface that conventionally, is not ‘meant to be’, he stares long and hard and it and says, “Who did this?”

School actually

Last Monday was a first.

Yes, I know there are several firsts that you want to keep track of when you have a baby and I am ashamed to admit that I am thoroughly useless in that department. Like I haven’t documented when Re first turned, or smiled, or teethed, or ate, or walked or talked.  All I know is that each time still feels like the first. Okay, I have a vague idea when they happened, but I was so ‘in the moment’ that I forgot to write it down. Hell, I forgot to start this blog till he was 16 months old!

Last Monday, the husband and I went for an orientation to the school that Re will be going to in six months. Six months! School!

I am already feeling Re’s babydom slipping away, and this morning, as I was talking to a friend whose child is in school and dealing with group dynamics (why x got a star and she didn’t), I began to wonder how little time I have for my baby to be a baby.

But something else stirred inside me that day, other than the OPU and me nodding at each other in unison at how much Re was going to enjoy what he was going to do at this school, because he already had a PhD in some of it (he doesn’t know that though).

As the teachers went about demonstrating materials and things they would use in play to teach language, arithmetic and other such, I was touched by the simplicity and the silence of the whole thing. I was also struck by a pang to go to school and start all over again. Just to learn in a way that is fun. Just so that I wouldn’t end up with a post graduation in pharmacy one day and then wonder what I had done with my student life. Just so it wouldn’t take me three decades to do what I loved doing at age seven.

I so want to go to that school.

Did you say learning toy?

 

A certain purple caterpillar is currently the bone of contention between the OPU and me. It was bought by him (while he was overwhelmed with emotion, in his words) as a ‘get well soon’ present when Re hit a table and cut his lip a few months ago.

I found it annoying. First, because it was a learning toy. The very phrase is an oxymoron, because if it’s a toy, it has no business to teach anything.  So the moronic caterpillar (called Alphabet Pal, ironically) has the following features: Press this and it will mouth phonetic sounds. Press that and it will play the tune of a silly nursery rhyme. Press that and it will vomit alphabets. Press that and it will tell you what colour it is. And so on.

Re hasn’t spent more than 60 seconds on it. This proves that he is not a moron.  The toy cost 1799. That is what I call a bad ROI.

I always find parents moaning that their kids never play with the toys they buy them, and yet, every time you walk into a toy store, and there they are, shopping like lunatics. What are they thinking? This might be the one? These 3000 rupees will be well spent? This toy will live longer than 60 seconds?

I figured I will not indulge in such material excesses and joined a toy library. On day one, I asked the lady in charge if she has a toy that doesn’t try to teach anything. She was stumped. She said that’s tough, because everything they had was designed to teach something. There went my enthusiasm. But at least I was eco-friendly, I thought. Slowly, I discovered a set of foam blocks that became Re’s favourite. The colours, the textures, the making, the breaking. I am all for motor skills. Anything that doesn’t involve learning the alphabet. Or some silly words like ‘please’ and ‘thank you’. Or sillier nursery rhymes. And what business does a baby have learning what a dinosaur is, considering he is never going to see one?

On the other hand, there is my kitchen and all its steel south-indian excesses that Re loves. Kadais, dekchis, pressure cookers (with seetis, mind you), saucepans, chapati rollers and the rest. You bet, the mother had palmed off some of the utensils she’d been collecting (for my marriage!) since my childhood. I bet most of them came from giving away our own clothes to the bhandiwala. I liked that bit of history too, and filed it away, thinking one day, I will tell him where that Prestige pressure cooker came from.

And kurmura is the new cool in Re’s life. I give him a bowlful every day. He eats some, uses some for cooking, pretends some is rice, some is tea, and some are garlic pods  to sauté (ever since onion and garlic became as expensive as caviar, they don’t figure in his playthings). He can stay in the kitchen all day unless he is pulled out. It’s great ROI. Money spent: zero. Joy gained: unlimited. Good toy.

Now take a quick look at your inventory of toys and tell me how many duds you found.

Help! I have excess baggage

Okay, time for a list. I love lists. I love making them, I love striking things off them with a vengeance, and when it’s all done, I love tearing the piece of paper to shreds and flinging it in the air. The OPU is not amused, as he will be the one picking up the pieces and depositing them in the dustbin, even hypothetically. Thankfully, Re likes order too. At least you can leave some things to genetics.

This list is about travel. Now, travelling with a baby is a huge concern for most mommies, chiefly what to pack, what to feed, what to look for in a resort, how to handle travel dramas. Here are my two-bits, although this is not a comprehensive list, so do not print it out and stick it on your wall as a check-list.

1. Babies are their banshee-best at 30000 feet, but you have to figure that out yourself. Hell, I would bawl too if I could. I am skinnier and smaller than most people I know, but every time I take a flight, I feel like the word is closing in on me.  Now added to the already existing claustrophobia, the too much skin contact with other passengers, the jostling and the queues and those damn airbuses which don’t make any sense, I have a child on my lap. I vow each time that next time, it will be the train, but the OPU is too high maintenance. So we fly again!
2.  Somehow, any toy at your disposal in-flight is not the one they want. For me, pretending the laminated diagram chart for safety measures is an Eric Carle book sometimes works. These days, the tiny bottles they serve water/lemonade in is also a distraction (assuming they can’t prise them open). If nothing works, the OPU and I blow into the air sickness bags and pop them. This can be a nuisance to the other passengers, but it somehow distracts the baby. Nursing is also a good distraction, if you are up to it, but somehow, they don’t want to nurse at the recommended nursing time, which is take-off and landing. Also, there is no such thing as discreet, because all shawls and ponchos and stoles will be yanked open, and your girls (that’s what I call them) will be on full display.
3. Packing. Now I would recommend packing everything in triplicate. I don’t mean to shock, but sometimes, honeymooners seem to walk out with your bag (which just happens to be the same color and size as theirs), and it can be nerve racking tracking it back. This happened to us. So I would just suggest packing at least extra sets of baby clothes, food, feeding utensils, underwear, diapers/nappies and a sheet or some such into every bag that you check in. Just in case.
4. If the baby is into solids, pack enough grains/porridge/seasoning/veggies /some fruit/ knives/spoons, so you are not running around looking for a market to buy essentials the minute you arrive. Carrots, potatoes, onions, peas, beans stay well for a week at least, and are not messy to pack. All grains/cereals can be packed in zip-lock bags and checked in.
5. It’s easy to say ‘we’ll order room service’, but in sleepy towns like Goa, room service is still brushing their teeth by the time the baby has his second meal of the day. So make sure you are self-reliant at least as far as the baby’s breakfast and one meal goes. Restaurant food may not always be an option, and you don’t want to spend precious hours supervising someone make a porridge or a khichdi or sautéeing vegetables, do you? Although the staff at Montego Bay, where we stayed in Goa was happy to make mashed potatoes and sautéed veggies for the baby. Which brings me to:
6. A mini electric rice-cooker. Panasonic or any other model. It’s a real saviour, compact, efficient and can cook just about anything in minutes. Buy one today, and it will be a faithful travel companion at least for the next three years. It’s one-pot cooking, so you can throw in anything and everything, add enough water, seasoning, and it cooks in minutes. I even made a pulao, a pasta, a dal, sautéed vegetables in it. Must have.
7.  The resort. Pick one that has been researched by you. In the sense that it should have a gradual, undulating landscape and enough room for the baby to wander/crawl about without hazard, and friendly staff that will look out for you and not just appear shadily for tips from nowhere when you are leaving. Montego Bay fit the bill perfectly. Baby-friendly and fun.
8.  Hammocks can be fun, although they are harder to negotiate than they appear to be. I rolled off one twice, with the baby, but he thought it was a game, so all was well. A mini pool is nice, it gives you and the baby something to do, which you wouldn’t do otherwise. Make sure you have an air pump for any floats, paddle pools that you might carry. Do not forget the baby’s swimsuit and sunblock!
9. What to order. In case you are eating out a lot (we did at least one new restaurant a day), the trick is to order dishes which have interesting sides, so you don’t have to order baby food separately. This is easier with continental food. So, a grilled meat or chicken dish will come with mashed or roasted potatoes, carrots or grilled vegetables. Perfect finger food for the baby. Pastas worked well for me, as Re loves them, any shape or size. And bread and dips are great too.
10. And lastly, if you can arrange a baby sitter or have a nanny, use this time to have special dates with the OPU (much needed on a holiday, to bring that romance back).
11.  If I have forgotten something vital, don’t blame me. It’s Christmas!

Have fun, and happy travelling, you all!

Operation hammock: third time lucky!

Three course meal from sides at La Plage: carrots, roasted potatoes, baguette

Who is walking whom is the question

Simple pleasures in a mallified era

Some time last week, I was doing my writing at the desk by the window and Re was rearranging his toys in the cupboard while flirting with his shadow as the evening sun came streaming in,  when I suddenly heard a rrrrrring which almost sounded like the ice-cream man of yore. Sure that it was some sort of drilling somewhere, and yet hopeful that it wasn’t, I leaned out the window.

There he was, a chakku-chhuriwala, on his fancy cycle, sharpening knives with a deep fervour, and sending off those musical notes, as he pedalled away. In this day and age, I never thought I could show this to Re, what with corner shops being gobbled up and malls being the order of the day.  An actual knife sharpener!

I was thrilled! He was entranced. It was a first.

Today’s children have been born in an era of excesses. Of over-consumerism, over-stimulation, over-knowhow and over-technology. It isn’t their fault, they didn’t choose it. But it might be easy to slip into the glitz and they would never know what life is like elsewhere. Wherever that is.

Which is why I am grateful to the old and rather crumbling building that I live in. To me, the chakku churiwala and the bhajiwala and the kurmura wala and the khaari wala who come to my doorstep are like detox. For me and Re. The OPU is very clear he doesn’t want to be a part of this circus, he is unabashedly a mall-rat.

Don’t get me wrong. Malls are convenient, at least when you have a child. They have aisles, they have trolleys, they have air-conditioning. Some days, when I run out of ideas, I wheel him around in a trolley in the mall. It’s a visual buffet for him and a  stock-up-on-the-essentials-and-the-utterly-useless for me.

But there is something about our daily date with our door-step sabziwala.Every morning as he unloads his basket, Re gives him a high-five and proceeds to play with the array of aubergines,  cucumbers and spring onions and is rewarded a carrot. Nadia, my feline first-born stealthily makes off with a tomato right under the bhajiwala’s nose and earns a spank from me. It’s bonding of a different kind.

Visual buffet for the eyes

In search of the perfect ball

 One might think it’s just a ball, right? How tough can it be to get the perfect ball for a little boy to play with? I got it right in six attempts. If the size was right, the bounce was not. If the bounce was right, the print was not. If the print was right, the colour was not.  If the colour was right, the texture was not. If the texture was right, the cat used it as a scratching post.

The ball with the mostest

So after rejecting all that I made available, the boy finally took to a certain Galaxy (Made in China) ball at his music class. Perfect bounce, light, firm, transparent, in fluorescent green, blue, and purple colours.

Off I went in search of the Galaxy ball. It seemed like a ride to a galaxy far far away. After combing all the usual suspects in my area, toyshops big and small, and then some Big Bazar and Magnet and the malls, and being subjected to Ben Ten, Superman and Spiderman on balls of every size, texture and bounce, I finally found Galaxy at Esquire, a corner shop for a princely sum of Rs 120 per ball.

The very next day, a friend at the music class gifted Re one. Hers was from Crawford market at half the price. Drat! The day after, I found it at the neighbourhood supermarket for Rs 90. “Hot item madam,” said the salesman. I wasn’t amused. I had Galaxy spilling out of my ears. Re now has four of them and I am guarding my Galaxies as if they were heirlooms.

What to do with baby?

I must have ‘ask me anything’ written all over my face. Here is a text message I received a few weeks ago. “Hey, where can I take Arnab to show animals?”. Hmm… I hadn’t thought of that. I figured with the indigenous wildlife at home (we have two resident felines) and the occasional crow, sparrow, pigeon on the ledge and the dogs being walked in the neighbourhood, I was doing okay. If we needed exotica, there was always Animal Planet. But real animals? In Bombay?  Tricky.

I didn’t fancy taking Re to a zoo where the sole habitants are near-dead or too hot-and-bothered, or underfed or under-mated , just to tick a “Has seen more than three animals” off my list. Not my scene.

A friend to whom such a tick is evidently important suggested the Natural History section of the Prince of Wales museum. When I shuddered at the thought of showing death in such larger-than-lifeness to a 16-month old, her logic was, “It is the only option when you want them to see real animals in close proximity in an almost-nice environment. So what if they are dead? They don’t look it!”

I am still thinking about it, since it creeps me out. And I don’t see how not seeing a real kangaroo or zebra is going to mar him for life.

In the meantime, we always have monkeys. And here is one who took a shine to the boy while we were driving through Borivili National Park. Must add here, that the Lion Safari where we spotted three tigers and one lion was not of much interest to the boy as he slept through it. Too much work peering out of a bus to spot a tiger or a lion far far away.

Monkey business in Borivli national park