In America

   My father had sent me a video wish with some of our older photographs at the time of the actual birth time which falls a day earlier.  Geethechi had called and said it has been a while since I heard your voice and we spoke for a little. I did not tell that it is my birthday. Rameez called to let me know that he may not be reachable if there is a power shutdown in Texas, and then we spoke for an hour plus. And then I was about to warm the Bathura for dinner, and was planning to smule "Thaamasamendhe varuvan.."     That is when I suddenly see Aiza and Leiba appear in front of the microwave, coming in from the dining area. Sudden change in scenery. Aiza said wait don't go in front. So, now I knew that my dear friends and neighbors are throwing a surprise. Now that I have realized that this is the surprise, I am no longer surprised. Vijesh was disappointed at the extent of surprise that came on my face. I see the whole gang come in - Anjali, Nimmy, Vijesh, Gafoor...

  Brinner When Solomon returns from his Mysore wineyards in his lorry and honks, Kaviyoor Ponnamma would turn the lights on and Lal would be served his dinner, albeit in the wee hours of the morning.  When our family and Cyril-Sheeja landed at Mahesh and Sindhu's home close to 4 AM with multiple flight delays, Sindhu served us with rice, dal, chicken etc - nice homely healthy food. That was how the trip started -- with a Brinner - breakfast time Dinner.  Morning tea Inspite of having slept in the early hours of morning, I woke up relatively early. I had some work to catch up on, and I was doing that while enjoying the expansive puget sound view. Meanwhile, Sindhu woke up and offered morning tea. I had not expected that after the Brinner. Early morning teas had a nice feel to it - especially in the cold weather. This was the pattern for the three days we were at their house.  The house  The house had started to impress everyone with it's humongous, curved living ...

  Old fashioned Vipin Vasudevan Vipin has not caught on to the current trends. The flat hierarchy thing. He doesn' really get that. So, he is very respectful to other Thaaram members elder than him. It starts with the affectionate "Chetta.." vili but it does not stop there. He listens patiently to all the suggestions coming from all the folks he interacts  with while handling the overall coordination of the Christmas celebrations this year. Vipin has a huge reservoir of patience, and humbly gets thing moving in the right direction. Another old fashioned thing that Vipin sticks to is hard work. He is always available to put in his work, and his time, late nights, early morning - whatever it takes. Hats off to you Vipin - awesome work! Unreasonable Girish The entire sound setup of the event for the songs and dances, ambient music came from Girish. Girish comes in in the morning of the event - with the laptop for the karaoke, two sets of mike receivers for the four mikes, th...

 It is rainy season. The theme for the amateur singers at Music India Foundation was rain. I had sung my rain song, and had come out to call my kids and ask them to have dinner. I called on whatsapp couple of times, and then on the phone couple of times.  He had blended into the parking lot, like the cars - possibly apprehensive about the clause that would disturb his status quo.

 As planned, everyone including Gafoor and Ramshi arrived around 2:45 3 PM timeframe at Greymont Park. We started off with a round of warm up Dumb Charades. Then Bharathi started unpacking her magic box of games. Collecting tennis balls thrown by team mates into a stack of paper cups, blowing the balloon into a special paper cup that looks like two cups stuck together on the narrow edge, and passing on to your team mate who picks it up using another half blown balloon and passes on. I was pleasantly surprised that I could do my part as well and guys' team won the game. Sorting M & Ms by color with straw suction, catching a potato on a fork, vocabulary quiz,  enacting a song while the guesser is forced to listen to unrelated song playing on noise cancelling headset, the games list was never ending. Innovative games. The most popular one was an improvised version of "What's the good word". We all stood in a circle. One person comes up with a category, and says one w...

  We had our Fremont potluck Onam at Amruth's home. We started with a group photo.  And then family photos.  Then, it was time for the sadya - and what is special about this Onam Sadya are Ashok's fish fry and Anjana's prawns fry. Those plantain leaves are from Amruth's backyard. This Onam celebrarion had got postponed from couple of week's back as Amruth fell sick on the original planned date. Hence, this sadya brought in some extra freshness unlike it would have been if it had come back to back with the residents' association sadyas that were happening last month.  Once early evening kicked in, Amruth made special "Wagh Bakri" tea. I really liked it and appreciated the tea. Amruth appreciated the appreciation and made me one more extra cup.  After that we had multiple engaging conversations - about Amruth's japan trip, about AI and the ever changing landscape, the immigration situation, about Alok's new San Jose home. The conversations contin...