Am leaving today from Chennai. I never thought that I will miss anything, but today I could think of 101 reasons why I would miss this place - being able to talk in tamil, autowallahs, food, music on FM, Surya sweets and greens etc., etc., Hmmmmm...

Anyways - will soon start posting from Bangalore. Till then, Ciao.

When you transfer from one place to another, if the movement of household items are taken care of, then it is a BIG relief.

We are shifting house for the sixth time in the past three years - across cities and within cities. I seem to know the Things to be done (TTBD in short), by heart! All the shifting has been done by movers and packers so far and we are not worried about moving our stuff anymore. Our experiences have been very good.

All you need to worry about is the associated things like (I just can't stop myself from listing it down :))

• Pay your maid /doodhwala (milkman)/newspaper wala
• Redirecting your mails
• Cancelling all your phone (landline/mobile) connections
• If you feel like it, throwing off the unwanted clothes/storage materials/papers etc.,
• Transferring your gas connection/ration card (Why we dont need to do this qualify for a separate post. One of these days I may end up writing that sob story :( )

Today we went to Hutch shop and Airtel to enquire about the cancellation procedure. Was very surprised that they dont insist on written requests anymore. Hutch, for example says that your bills will reach you by email and when you get the new connection, you can email them at hutchcare.chennai@hutch.co.in to cancel it. Pretty impressive development I should say!

Bought a new mobile phone /handset today. It is a sony ericsson - model w700i (walkman series) costing Rs.12,500.

So far, I always have had handsets that serves the basic purposes - to talk and to send/receive text messages. And was loyal to Nokia.

Have done the basic exploration of the new handset - it has got

• 2 mega pixel camera
• FM radio
• walkman
• expandable memory etc., etc.,

We decided on this after looking at w550i(rejected because of no expandable memory) and Nokia 7610 (no FM).

I've been listening to FM in the new phone and I've one comment - sound quality not very good if it is on speaker. The head phones is great!

Yesterday we went and bought woollens for Kimaya from Lifestyle in the Chennai City center mall on R.K Salai.

This mall is a place we frequent, especially to Landmark and Lifestyle - even before the food court and other shops like health and glow, Reynolds etc., started off. I think they have recently opened the movie screens also - we saw the INOX ticket counter.Parking facilities are good (Just after the rains we went there on a Saturday night and had to park at the basement 2. Not a very great experience. But if you can park at B1, then it is cool.) Food court is spacious and the variety that is offered is good.

I was freaking out at the kids section of Lifestyle - we bought lots of stuff that she needs and a few items because we both wanted to :) . If the items are not imported, I found the prices reasonable. So far, whatever we have bought from here - clothes / accesories / household items / kids clothes and toys - quality is great. I just love shopping here and am happy that they have got branches in Bangalore also!

Today I added the 'as a mom' to the existing title of this blog. I think that will be apt as I'm going to start back at work from next month.

Hope sharing my experiences will be of some help to working-mothers and prospective mothers !

Kimaya is four months old. She makes all sorts of noises and wants us to understand. She rules my life. Latest is that I can't talk to people if she is not okay with it. (She expresses everything by crying / screaming).

Have been at home for almost 5 months and will be back to work from Dec 6th. I've now got used to doing things when she is asleep - planning unconsciously. Dont know what will be the status after going to work.

We are moving back to Bangalore because as if I've to continue to work, I needed a good support system at home. Leaving the child with a babysitter without any supervision was a definite no no. I dont think we can work peacefully. This is an advice that I had got from several working-mothers. We are yet to look for a baby sitter in Bangalore. The process will start only after we move there.

Awareness about various investment options has increased over time. Getting the right information at the right time, due to technological development has made it possible.

Bank Fixed deposits have lost their focus as the interest rates have fallen down. Everyone is calculating ROI on every investment made. Hence for the higher risk takers stock market has become a key area to invest and for the moderate risk takers mutual funds has become THE option.

For those who are investing in India in stocks and mutual funds, http://www.hdfcsec.com and http://www.mutualfundsindia.com are good reference sites.

Off late, gold (in the form of biscuits) is looked at as another investement option. I've heard of a person who buys a sovereign of gold every month once the car loan emi got over and another one who buys almost 8-10 sovereigns per year for her daughters.

Now, where should you buy such gold biscuits - should it be from jewellers? or should it be from banks? or should it be from the commodities market itself? I dont know, but for those who want to choose, here is an interesting 'must read' article I came across! It is a real eye opener.