Saturday, May 28, 2011

Today is our daughter's 2nd Wedding Anniversary

A glimpse of some of her wedding  and other pictures:



Our Daughter Puja



Her  Husband Ram: 

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?


Thou art more lovely and more temperate.....

Sometime too hot  the eye of heaven shines.....



ram...can u make the sun go away?!

 



Give your Hearts
Kahlil Gibran

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

La Vita Nuova (excerpt)

Dante Alighieri
In that book which is
My memory...
On the first page
That is the chapter when
I first met you
Appear the words...
Here begins a new life.

From This Day Forward

Author Unknown
From this day forward,
You shall not walk alone.
My heart will be your shelter,
And my arms will be your home.



Let there be spaces in your togetherness,

And let the winds of the heavens dance between

 you

Love one another but make not a bond of love:

Let it rather be a moving sea between the

shores of


 your souls.

Sing and dance together and be joyous,

 but let

 each

 one of you be alone,


Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they


This was sketched by Ram. Below is the original.
 
 quiver with the same 

music
.


Always smiling
Because of your smile, you make life more beautiful.




Greece



When the one whose hand you're holding
Is the one one who holds your heart
When the one whose eyes you gaze into
Gives your hopes and dreams their start,
When the one you think of first and last
Is the one who holds you tight,
And the things you plan together
Make the whole world seem just right,
When the one whom you believe in
puts their faith and trust in you,
You've found the one and only love
You'll share your whole life through.



Happy Anniversary!!!             


Isn't lovely to travel back in time and relive these happy moments again and again?

Thursday, May 26, 2011

How about some nice, hot, crispy onion pakodas?





"Look it is raining, says grandma, looking up from her knitting


"Oh, wow! I can only look at the lovely pakodas you have made"...says grandpa




The weather is cloudy, with thunder and lightning, with some welcome showers, it is such a relief!!
The time to celebrate: and what could be a better way to do it than make some hot pakodas with some heavenly cups of tea to go with it......





All of a sudden the garden is looking so pretty and inviting.....









Its has been ages since I made onion pakodas, so pushing aside my guilty conscience, I went ahead and made them: so here they are looking so delicious and irresistible....










Don't you feel like having some, then what are you waiting for?
Go ahead and make it and enjoy homemade onion pakodas, the rain, the garden and your life..........

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Father, My Dear Father ( today's alphabet 'F')


I would like to share a funny incident regarding my dear father and my mother.

 Many years ago when my father was posted in Assam, he learnt to ride a scooter, and bought one too. He always loves riding his scooter, and we often tease him that even for his daily walks he uses his scooter……He literally walks in his scooter.

    So having bought the new scooter he offered to take my mother for a ride in it. My mother was all game for it, despite knowing he was a learner only. They set out, my mother  being very careful in tucking her saree very correctly, so that her saree pallu doesn’t get caught while riding, and cause an accident. Everything was going fine for about 10 minutes, when at some point my father had to stop at the signal. Since it was going to be a long wait he switched off the engine, and was waiting for the signal to change.

  In the meantime, my mother being the very naive and concerned wife,  thought she should get down from the scooter and just wait till the signal changes. Her thoughts being very noble in the sense, she felt it would help lighten the weight for my father who was still new to scooter riding.

 So very dutifully like typical Indian wife she got down from the scooter, waiting for the call from her master and lord to ask her to sit when he was ready. My father was not aware that she had got down at all. As soon as the signal changed, he gave one kick to start and amazingly in  one single kick itself the scooter started, and he flew away at high speed leaving  my mother behind looking like a fool.

After covering  quite a distance, my father started talking to my mother asking whether she would like to visit a friend who happened to live close by.  He kept on talking, not realizing that mother was not  there at all. He also noticed people were looking at him strangely, (people obviously were thinking he was some mad man riding a scooter at top speed and talking to himself).

Since he was not getting any response from the back,  he got worried and just took a peak at the back only to see the back seat empty. He was shocked ..... where was his wife, did she roll off somewhere. He made a quick u- turn, and started going back the way he came, looking all along for some rolled off item that looked like my mother.

 In the mean time my mother who had been so ruthlessly left behind in the middle of the road was really embarrassed, some people who had watched the incident couldn’t help giggling at her plight, and some people were really concerned and came to help her out of the moving traffic. She felt really embarrassed and immediately hailed a Cycle-rickshaw  to take her back home. The problem was she did not even carry her purse with her, thinking there was no need as she was with father.

  But never-the less she thought that taking a rickshaw made more sense than standing there attracting more attention to herself, and she can always pay after she reaches home. So with tears barely waiting to pop out from her beautiful eyes, she left in the first available rickshaw.
 My father came searching for her, and was passing by the same signal, when he was stopped by the traffic police. My father stopped worried wondering .....  now where had he goofed up, he had already lost his wife now what??

 The police man started laughing, and told my father that his wife had left in a rickshaw, and advised him to go home quickly and pacify her. My father was relieved to know that nothing had happened to his wife, but her reaction really worried him.
But as usual after the initial anger my mother forgave him, when she realised it was not his mistake. The moral of the story: she remembered to carry her purse with her always when she went out him, and also to never get down from the scooter till she reached the destination.

 Though my mother is no more we keep remembering the many weird adventures she has had with my dad whenever they travelled together in the scooter. Now, my father still rides a moped at the age of 90. It never fails to  amaze us how young and healthy and outgoing my father is even at this age. He has never lost the jest for life.  The positive attitude of my father is very contagious, and I am happy I have caught that disease from him.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

94 Years Old : Happy Birthday Dear Father!!!!


 On this special day (15th May),  I want to share a story about my dad......
 A  wedding in the family— I am excited for I hear my dad is coming to attend it. He is staying with me for a whole week— I can't believe it!

                                                     This was some 6 years back


 The minute he enters the house he starts chatting with us non- stop….. for there are so many things to ask , so many things to share etc. etc. He is a real store – house of knowledge …. we have to just ask him something, and he would give a detailed explanation, amazing us with his intelligence, sharp memory, and great sense of humour. He would go back to his younger days and relate all the stories of how he met and married my mother.

Those days marriage was not a matter of choice …. it involved marrying for various reasons. Marrying within the family was considered to be best option for everybody. For example if your father’s sister had 5 or 6 daughters to be married it is the duty of the father to bring home at least one of his sister’s daughter as his daughter- in- law, this way he was helping in reducing the burden from his sister’s shoulders. Similarly an uncle could marry his own niece.
 This was the custom followed for ages all over south, though now it is not so much in vogue, but still some people follow it . As long as it is not direct blood relation everything is okay. One can’t even think of such things these days.

Well my father married his mother’s brother’s daughter, (which is my mother). According to him he was given the choice of marrying any 1 of the 2 daughters, who were suitable for his age. But he was in a dilemma, for both were good looking, and it was up to him to choose. So he changed the names of the girls in their horoscopes and also  changed his name in his horoscope, (because everybody knew everybody, the astrologer would not even bother to match horoscopes when it is in the family), so my father cheated a little and made him match the horoscope saying it was for a friend. Of the two only one matched, which happened to be my mother’s horoscope, and thus the choice was made. Another distant cousin married the elder daughter, in fact both my father and his cousin married the respective girls on the same day to save money. That was the way things were done in those days , one had to keep everything in the mind.

 But, although my parents remained happily married for 49 years, they were the sort of couple who could never see eye to eye on any issue, and since my father had the dominating streak, what he said only prevailed. My mother although loved him deeply, she hated this attitude. He had jokingly revealed to her, how he made the choice of marrying her, and whenever my mother happened to meet that astrologer, she would tell him that she felt like tying him to pole and give him 100 whip lashes.

 My parents life was full of ups and downs. Whenever my parents did get along, my mother would ask my father, to tell her the truth ….. that he married her because he fell for her , and he would always tell her it was not love. Now he is all alone, and he feels bad that he never told her how much he loved her.  He said he could have told her that at least once, but he was too proud to admit that to her.

But I am sure she must have guessed it long time ago, but simply wanted to know right from the horse’s mouth.  Now he feels her loss so much, that he would keep going back to the days when they were really happy, and he says they were made for each other despite their differences, that  the universe works in mysterious ways, though he thought at that time he could choose between the 2 sisters, and tried to hoodwink the astrologer, he must have known deep in his heart that it was my mother he always wanted to marry.

 This, coming from my father, now when my mother is no longer here to feel happy to hear it, was really moving.  However this is not the first time I am hearing him say this, for I have heard this story many times from him, but only after my mother passed away, which was  almost 19 years ago.




 Well, this is just one interesting story about my father and mother, there are many, many more, but it would take volumes to write about each every interesting facets of their turbulent lives together.

Accidents and my father are made for each other, but he would never let such incidents bother him. He would pick himself up from the scene of accident, and bleeding all over, he would be back home in the same moped. Being a Pharmacy graduate he would know what medicines to apply and within 2/3 days he would be back to normal with not even a single mark or scar to show how badly he was hurt.

Even recently about 15 days back he was hit by  somebody while he was travelling in his moped, left there to deal with it  all by himself, and as usual he was back on his feet and  came home riding the moped with lot of pain everywhere in his body, saying as usual his time is not all right: that he must have troubled the fellow who hit him and went off,  in some previous birth, and that it is all part of the game.......

Surprisingly not a single person has ever helped him during such accidents. Somehow God has given him the strength to pull himself up and keep moving without looking back.

Now the present:

 For the last 1 year or so he has been suffering from Dementia, and recently he went out on his own and got lost. In his confused state of mind he thought he was going to Srirangam and caught a bus from somewhere for that from his house in Beasnt Nagar. He promised that he would not go far and insisted he be left alone to take his morning walk by  himself. However, knowing his condition, my brother left about 10 minutes later to keep a watch on him from a safe distance, but unfortunately my father was nowhere to be seen.  Worried, my brother searched all the usual places he would generally visit and found him nowhere.
His story was put in News papers, along with his photos, but we did not get any response for quite sometime. Another photo was put again in a Tamil News paper and this time there was a response from a person from Kundrathur, somewhere close to Chengalpeth.

Ali a 42 year old scrap merchant found him in a very bad condition lying  near the road in front of the Mosque. Ali felt sorry for him, called a few friends of him and they all cleaned up our father,  took him home and changed his dirty Veshti,  got him into a clean lungi, bought some hot idlies and fed him. He was very weak, couldn't remember his name, only thing he kept repeating was "Srirangam". Since he is also deaf he could not understand what these good people were asking him.
Ali felt he needed medical treatment and immediately admitted him in the general hospital there. The next day, he saw our father's picture in the Tamil News Paper, and immediately contacted my brother, saying, his father was in the general hospital there. Ali, we only know his name, as that good man didn't even want to meet my brother, he just gave him the ward number, and told him to take his father home. Such good people are rarely found in this world. I think our father was lucky to have found such good person, who went out of the way to help him.
It made us wonder, how many of us would go out of the way and help somebody lying like a beggar on the road, we would not even give such people a second thought.
The help rendered by Ali  would always make us remember him in our prayers, and also make us more conscious of people lying around in some helpless state like our father. Our father must have been roaming in that condition for days before he was found. We thank God for sending Ali like an angel to save our father.
In the hospital too he was well looked after not only by the doctors and nurses, but people coming to visit other patients  in that ward too were very good  to him, sharing their food with him.
My father when he saw my brother was so relieved, he started crying uncontrollably, like a child, for he has become a child.
This man, our Father, who is so educated, so intelligent, has been reduced to this state: no one should ever get Dementia, it is the worst condition a person can suffer.
He is back home safe and healthy, and he has been told very strictly, that he cannot leave the house alone.
We must thank our brother and his wife too, for taking very good care of him.

 I can only say that, I am proud to have had such a loving and patient mother, and I am equally proud to have a such a wonderful father, who, may have been very proud at one time and still is,  but is definitely a man with very good heart and a great smile and a positive attitude towards life.



Taken just 5 years back, my dad looks so fit and smart.

Happy Birthday Day Dear Appa!

Saturday, May 7, 2011

I'll Still Be Loving You - Reba McEntire : A Tribute To My Mother

A poem and a song for my mother......




As I Look Back
As I look back on my life
I find myself wondering.....
Did I remember to thank you
for all that you have done for me?

For all of the times you were by my side
to help me celebrate my successes
and accept my defeats?

Or for teaching me the value of hard work,
good judgment, courage, and honesty?

I wonder if I've ever thanked you for the simple things...
The laughter, smiles, and quiet times we've shared?

If I have forgotten to express my gratitude
For any of these things,
I am thanking you now....
and I am hoping that you've known all along,
how very much you are loved and appreciated.

- Author Unknown. 

I really love this picture of my mother : it was taken when she was 12/ 13 years old.
It brings out her beauty in a such a lovely way. With dreams in her eyes, not knowing all the hardships that life had in store for her. 


Her love was unconditional. She always had a smile, even in times of crisis. It was her zest for life that was so inspiring
 I really love you mother,  you will always be there in my mind,  and be my guardian angel.


Happy Mother's day to all!!!
I am happy to be the  mother of my two lovely children.