Tara: *Hogging on her PSP. Engrossed, playing a nasty violent shooting game*.

Adult: Tara, let your cousin Faya (Probably a couple of years younger than Tara) play instead. Take turns.

Tara: *Ignoring the adult*.

Adult: Come on Tara, you need to learn how to share.

Tara: *Shrugs, turns to Faya and gave Faya a signature “Tara” look*. Short pause. Can you kill?? Huh huh?? Can you killllllllllll??!! (While shoving the PSP in front of Faya’s face).

Faya: *Looks down coyly, face flushed, hands wrapped around each other*. No….

Tara: No?? Ok, then let me play!

It was alright. It didn’t matter. Because the candles were blown, the cake was licked, and we had a non-traditional birthday party by the waterfall.

And eventhough Isaac had not wished out loud what he wanted, we ALL knew.

Just like his uncle, he wants to be a photographer. Or at least a DSLR of his own. Oh no!

A normal family picture.

An even more normal family picture. Compliments of Raja’s attack.

Happy 2nd Birthday Isaac!! We love you loads.

Even after two weeks’ worth of separation, she had still remembered me. A vivid recollection of our duo fusion dance rendition and flawless lip syncing moment was still fresh in her mind. Only this time, she wanted the real deal.

She wanted to sing, and she wanted me to take turns singing with her. Like seriously sing. As in to actually vocalize melodious tones–gods knows how– from our mouths, without cheating. So no trusty radio or real music to back us up. And I had no say in it. No negotiations. No bargaining. No chickening out. To sing I must and to sing I shall.

Clearly, I was doomed.

Without delaying, she quickly positioned herself in front of the telly, in front of David Letterman nonetheless. Clutching her fake microphone (which by the way was a cardboard cylinder taken from the aluminum foil that was previously used to whack Jothy with), she mumbled some words from the song ‘Paparazzi’ by Lady Gaga. It was more of a humming. Almost disappearing.

But then her voice started clearing up and became immoderately louder upon reaching the chorus bit. I’m assuming that’s the only part that she actually knows. She continued singing, wailing, I’m your biggest fan…I’ll follow you until you love me…Papa…Paparazzi…Baby there’s no other superstar…You know that I’ll be your…Papa…Paparazzi.

In the midst of singing those words, she’ll point the fake microphone towards me once in a while, signaling whenever it was my cue to cut in. So I sang my tone deaf heart out. Papa…Paparazzi. And every time I’d jumped in, the corner of her lips would curve upwards. That was good news. Her smile was a positive indication of her approval towards my singing. I was liberated.

Nevertheless, the song felt like it lasted forever because she re-sang the song again and again and again, countless of times. I, by the way, felt like my throat was going to dig its way out and strangle Tara if I had to sing another Papa…Paparazzi.

I can’t remember how but I had managed to divert her Red-Bull-I-wanna-be-a-superstar driven attention towards Raja. It was totally right down his alley. After all, he used to sing for his band and even made an album, so he was way over qualified for this job.

Tara: Uncle Raja, please sing for me.

Raja: I’m your biggest fan…I’ll follow you until you love me…Papa…Paparazzi…Baby there’s no other superstar…You know that I’ll be your…Papa…Paparazzi...

Tara: *Burst out into laughter* Oh my god, why your voice is like so lousy? I’ll never bring you to any of my concerts.

Raja: *Speechless*

Tara: *Continues laughing and adding salt into injury* Oh my god, your voice is like a mouse you know…cheee cheee cheee (trying to impersonate a mouse squeaking).

In all fairness, Raja was singing in a carefree, comical, and high-pitched squeaking manner for the fun of it. Even so, I strongly believe with no doubt in my mind that Tara has great judgment when it comes to music. Which is incontestably why she favored my singing compared to Raja. Great talent is so rare these days. Ahhh…I [heart] you groupie.

On another note, apart from a beating baton and a prop microphone, the cardboard cylinder appeared to have a couple of other uses, such as a Telescope.

And a Play-Doh pastry roller.

Impressive. It’s almost as sophisticated and multipurpose as my favorite mortar and pestle.

For those of you with no kids or nieces or nephews of your own or the subscription to channel 615 on Astro, that’s actually one of the songs from the soundtrack of Lilo and Stitch. And last night Raja and I were invited to Tara’s He Mele No Lilo dance performance. Of course, we graciously said yes.

Much to our surprise, Tara was well behaved most of the time. Sure there were some intentional pushing, poking, and friendly bumping during assembly. Some cheeky facial gestures slid in between here and there. But overall, she was, dare I say it, pretty decent.

Juliana said it may have something to do with exhaustion. The kids had been rehearsing their performances from 3pm up til that evening. Gee, those teachers sure are smart to tire those kids like that. Way before they get out of control. I think my mum took an easier alternative and fed us cough syrup. Something like that. Or something stronger.

Here’s a rundown of what happened throughout the night.

This was taken during assembly, after pushing the boy’s head in front of her. The girl she was staring wickedly at was next.

Tara’s Hawaiian moves. Her tube kept slipping down the whole night.

Dear God, I don’t ask for much. Please let me give birth to an equally –if not a more– adorable child. Amin. Much appreciated. (Just some random kid I wanted to kidnap).

After some Summer Lovin’, Jaiho, Pirate Joe, and many many other performances, the night finally came to an end. Strips of fluorescent confetti and sprinkles of gold dust were scattered everywhere.

I absolutely adore the next couple of pics. Credits to the uber fabulous Raja.

Have a wonderful weekend ya’ll!

My mum had brought my family along with my cousins up to Templar’s Park. The long exhausting drive to our destination was immediately washed away by the icy cold splashes from the breathtaking waterfall. I can still feel the warm sun rays painting our faces in stripy yellow hues as it penetrates itself between the hovering tree leaves above us.

Nature was something my mum thought us to love. And I love her for that.

Ironically, at the bottom of the waterfall was this Olympic size man made pool, about 8 feet in depth. Seeing that my brothers and I attended swimming classes as little as 3 years old, 8 feet was somewhat non-life threatening for us. My cousins however, all four of them, had no swimming experiences whatsoever, so they spent the day clinging to the sides of the pool.

After spending hours in the semi nature pool, with the sun shining at the tip of our heads, blatantly signaling that it was lunch time, my brothers and I crawled out of the pool. Soaking and dripping wet, our tummy growled even harder as we chewed hungrily into our sandwiches.

Everything was perfect. Until suddenly, there was this loud commotion coming from the direction of the pool. It all happened so fast, yet so slowly. It’s really hard to explain.

From where I was seated, I saw Azrin in the water first. He was steered a couple of feet away from the side of the pool. His safe area. Aware of his desperate cries for help, his elder brother Azmi instantaneously jumped in after him. It was amazing. He jumped in to save his little brother, which obviously turned out to be a foolish idea seeing that neither of them knew how to swim.

It didn’t stop there. Next, their sister Shima, loosened her grip from the side of the pool and unhesitatingly pushed herself into the middle of the water to save her two drowning younger brothers. Now, there were officially three people choking water and violently gasping for air. As a finale, their eldest sibling Lia, leaped from the side of the pool and splashed into the drowning trio making herself the final member of the drowning fools.

My mind was going into slow motion as I watched my cousins flapping their hands wildly above the water with their heads bobbing in and out like a cherry. They were ALL drowning!

Fortunately, several men, who made sure they knew how to swim first, jumped into the water and pulled all four of my cousins into safety. My mum was clearly worried out of her mind. I, on the other hand, was just baffled at what I had just witnessed. Why? Why would anyone do such a thing? They were still too shocked from their mass near death experience to explain.

As I sat there in Raja’s mom’s living room, my eyes finally relaxing and my ears allowing the laughter to race back into me, I realized that it was all about love. Foolish as it may seem, leaping into the arms of death one after another, it was all for the love of the family.

Here’s a shot of Raja and two of his cousins during our trip to Templar’s Park using my iPhone. I’m pleased to announce that no mass drowning incident occurred during this trip. I just hope that should an unwanted event ever happen, there will be others out there to leap for me too. For the love of the family.

That’s what my brother would remind me from time to time. Unfortunately, it’s true. Apart from my mum, the rest of us are useless when it comes to singing. Or playing any musical instruments. Or even dancing for that matter. We’re hopeless. Hopelessly hopeless. I blame my dad. And his genes.

We lack the rhythm, the beat, the harmony, basically the whole nine yards of music. It’s not like I’ve never tried to overcome those obstacles. Believe me, I did.

When I was 12, I joined the choir team. However, I was suspiciously placed in the back row. They said it was because I was taller than the other kids in the front row. But I knew better. The further away the listeners were, the harder it is for them to gag and die from the hysterical shrills, squealing out from my vocal chords. On an unrelated note, they made us wear these ridiculously awful pregnant-looking clothes that were made out from what could easily be mistaken by 1926’s curtain drapes. It was a nightmare.

By the time I was 13, I insisted on playing the organ. The first few weeks was a breeze. I received colorful stickers, star-shaped signatures, and generous compliments from my music teacher. I was a fast learner. Boy, was she impressed! She even called me a natural. But what she didn’t know was that I was actually more of a good memorizer. I memorized everything she ever thought me. EVERYTHING. I never knew what any of the musical notes meant. I just photographically memorized which keys to press as we moved from song to song. So when it came to the harder grades, my brain was about to explode. Eventually, I bailed out. Plus, the electronic organ I had at home was beaten to death. Literally. My brother treated it as a  substitute wall and practiced his tennis skills against it. It was fate.

The following year, I took up guitar lessons. It was dejavu all over again. I memorized the notes, the chords, the strumming, up to even the slightest coffee stain and molecule on the page I was playing. I was nowhere near at being a natural. Or even normal for that matter. The skin under my fingers were blistering and peeling from the pressure of grasping onto the guitar strings, desperately trying to make music. However, the noise that shrieked out from those guitar strings were horrific. Monstrous. Deadly. Once again, I bailed out. Also, my eldest brother gave my guitar away. It was fate.

Years passed by since any of my attempts to tango with music. That was until this year.

On the way back from celebrating Deepavali at my grandma’s house, I hitched a ride from my brother. As I pulled myself into the back seat, Tara was strapped securely beside me. With a single direct order from Tara, Mummy, give me music!, the radio was switched on. Music was pumping through the speakers and Tara was tapping her feet against the car seat to the music beat. Tapping to the song ‘Evacuate the Dance Floor’ by Cascada. I totally love that song. Very upbeat, very catchy.

This is it. This is my time to shine. I observed her for a while before quickly jumping in at the chorus. With my body moving to the tempo, my hands flying above my shoulders, my legs kicking exuberantly, and my mouth lip-syncing to Cascada’s angelic voice. Oh oh oh…Oh oh oh…evacuate the dance floor…Oh oh oh…Oh oh oh…I’m infected by the sound…Oh oh oh…Oh oh oh…Stop, this beat is killing me…Oh oh oh…Oh oh oh… Hey Mister DJ let the music take me underground . I kept changing my moves, mixing and matching what little dance steps I can recollect from music videos, and molding them into a spontaneous indoor choreography. From disco, to the robot dance, and back to the John Travolta pointing-to-the-stars move. I continued this horrendous shenanigan until the music ended. It was my best performance ever.

When I turned to Tara, she had a blank expression plastered on her face. In fact, she had that look the entire time I was mimicking Cascada wholeheartedly. Her eyes were staring intensely into mine in a confused manner, with her mouth fully opened, revealing her chipped tooth. Thoughts of Oh oh oh…Oh oh oh…Stop, you’re killing me — almost like the lyrics to the chorus– must have crowded her mind. I was patiently waiting for blood and brain fluid to ooze out of her eyes and ears simultaneously as she maintained her blur, unimpressed, straight face.

Then out of nowhere, she started clapping her hands frantically with her eyes sparkling wide opened and her smile stretching from ear to ear, screaming My turn! My turn! With my eyes sparkling even wider and my smile stretching two circles around my ears, I scooted even closer to my first groupie. We continued taking turns lip-syncing and creating mind-blowing dance moves all the way home.

Finally, a person who appreciates my art. My talent. My musical ability.

So what if she’s only 5. My fate is changing.

Tara: Hello Miss. May I serve you some food and drinks?

Jothy: Why yes. Yes you may.

Tara: This is for you. A big tissue and a nice drink.

Jothy: Ohh..thank you. What is this shiny thingy?

Tara: This thing?

Tara: Something to beat you with.

Jothy: Huh? Noooooo. Tara Don’t!

Tara: *Whack*

Jothy: ADAMMMMMM…..

Adam: TARA! How many times have I told you not to hit people?

Tara: Ok ok. Sorry sorry.

Tara: *Feeling remorse*

Tara: *Back to normal*

Jothy: Taraaaa..NO!

Tara: *Whack*

Jothy: ADAMMMMMM….

Tara: No no. I’m just reading this map.

Tara: See….

The end.

Are you still with me? Ok, good. So one day, Juliana (she’s my sis in law — and no she did not ’shi shi’ in this story) went to pick up Tara (my sometimes lovely niece) from the kindergarten. Usually the highlight of Juliana’s trip to the kindergarten would consists on listening to Tara’s classmates complaining about how Tara was a naughty naughty girl. “Tara licked me”. “Tara pushed me”. And believe it or not, there was even a “Tara threw a chair at me”. Seriously. But this time, it was Tara’s teacher who wanted to have a word with Juliana. Inside the classroom. Oohhhkay. What now?

Apparently, Tara had ’shi shi-ed’ (Yes, I had just used a passed tense for a made believe word. But it was in Reneepedia. I checked twice) on herself in class earlier that morning. On the way back, Juliana questioned Tara about the unfortunate incident. “What happened?”. “Did the teacher hit you?”. “Tell me”. Embarrassed, Tara refused to explain what had happened. She just kept quiet the whole way. Silence is not Tara’s thing, so it must have been serious.

Worried and restless, Juliana kept interrogating Tara. “What happened? What happened?”. Finally Tara broke down and told her side of the story. According to her, she wanted to pee but the kindergarten had CCTVs installed everywhere. Even in the toilet cubicles. Being the innocent girl that she clearly isn’t, she felt shy and terrified that the cameras would see her ’shi shi’. So she peed in her pants instead. She even swore that she wasn’t lying. She swore.

The next day, Juliana confronted the teacher again. Unsurprisingly, there were NO cameras in the toilet. No conspiracy on mild child pornography there. The truth was, Tara was being naughty as usual, so the teacher gently spanked her. I think that made her self-esteem go from hero to zero and down came the pee. End of story.

I don’t know whether Juliana should be worried about Tara’s avid lying problem or elated that Tara will most definitely score an A for creative writing. For a 5 year old, CCTV excuses are wayyyyy off the charts. She is so good. So so good.

I have this feeling that Tara won’t appreciate reading this particular blog post in years to come.

Everyone was down in PD this year. Including Tara a.k.a “Crazy” (please refer to much previous post for more elaborated details on “crazy”). Like any other day, she made noise. Loud ones. This time, she was pestering everyone to go to what she called the “phwaygound”. Kept repeating ” I wanna go phwaygound” on and on and on again. We, the family, finally succumb to her demands. Besides, nothing beats spending some quality time at the playground with your loved ones.

Also, I got to experiment with my 50mm f/1.8.

Can you feel the love?

Oh by the way, incase you were wondering, my dad absolutely loved the album. Yeay!

If I could use one word to describe her, it would be “crazy”. Entertaining nonetheless. One time I caught her frantically running in circles while telling her own shadow to stop following her. That’s normal right?

This year, we celebrated her birthday at Tony Romas, Cineleisure. Just a small birthday lunch among family members. I was really looking forward to snap some cool birthday photos but it was ridiculously hard to capture her on camera. Here are some shots taken when she kept still. Well, almost still.

Food. Pasta. Fries.

It’s her party and she can cry if she wants to. La la la la la.

Clever distraction before the cake arrives.

Tara’s cake. Bubbles from The Power Puff Girls.

She sees it.

She kills it.

She drowns it.

And she likes it!

She looks so cute handling the camera.

Happy Birthday Tara! Love you always.