Destiny..elephants.. memories..

San has successfully managed me for 20 years now! A milestone that I am extremely grateful to pass. The kids who always take my side, finally acknowledged "yeah. you are not an easy guy to deal with. you are very complicated. so amma did do well to handle you for 20 years". 

They are her toughest and biased critics and this came from them.. 

Was still under travel pressure, so we just kept it simple this time. Lunch at Chaat House as usual for our anniversary (this time with my in laws) and a visit to the local temple to say thanks. There was no ice cream at Ghirardelis.. 

We also ended up on a whirlwind India trip for 5 days. This time to do a Sadhabishegam function for my dad and mom. Have written a recent post on this..

My dad's 1000'th moon happens in early December and technically (the sankara sastri in me rears his ugly head again).. we should have celebrated this next February. Then there are astrologers, older people, fuzzy logic, health concerns etc.. and the quantum computing ended up with last week as the "last Revathy birth star of the first half of the year where the earth moves northwards (between Jan14th and July 14th)".. If your head is spinning faster than the earth after reading that, you are in good shape. Like they say in Yoga class "it is normal to feel dizzy after that!". 

It was hectic for us, as Jr. is going to Senior year in high school and we have a packed agenda. We did go as a family and celebrate the event. It went better than expected, given my dad was in diapers three months ago when I went for a 5 day visit. His parkinsons is under control, but he had a fall and was recovering from it. Looks like he is back to where he was before his fall. 

We literally entered the house at 5AM and the function started at 6:30AM.  Chennai was going through a water crisis. So there was the waiting for water truck on some days. It was also the first time we stayed in a hotel in Chennai. Hotels have water and star hotels definitely have water. That was a good decision to move to a hotel.

Two days for the function, two days for rest and we flew back on day 5!

In those two so called "rest days" we managed to

- go meet my grandma (who could not make it to the function)

- meet San's grandma

- eat out in three places

- visit Kabali temple and

- do a quick round of shopping in old Cupertino/ Old Fremont..

sorry.. Mylapore and Mambalam.. I have to write a separate post on why folks who are in Mylapore side end up in Cupertino and Mambalam side end up in Fremont.. the statistics are interesting.. think BART and Station road might have something to do with it..

where were we? Yes.. quick visits on two "rest" days.

We visited Kabali temple .. the place where San and me met for the first time..a place where "our fates changed" in San's words.

The kids went to the elephants and quickly realized that the elephants were sitting in the sun all morning and were at 41 C. One quickly jumped off and the other managed a smile knowing she had already done the damage..

Don't how many kids have sat on these elephants and had fun over the last centuries.. 

We also walked through one of my favorite places in the temple where they keep the cows and peacocks.. Didn't not spot any peacocks this time but this little calf came and was all over me.. kissing me and wanting to play with me. Brought back so many memories.. 

As usual I am now down with a cold virus from the flight.. so taking it easy and resting as much as I can for the long weekend.

My one achievement for the trip was to take a family group picture of my parents with all their kids and families. This group has never been together under one roof ever.. this was the first time. Hopefully it will be repeated many more times.. Have waited a long time to take this picture!

Will have more pictures to edit and share soon. This trip was only 5 days and 20k miles but felt like we went to the moon and back and over decades of time in memories..

Never miss a chance to say hi..

I had three days in India. One was to go shopping the day before Deepavali. One day was to celebrate Deepavali and visit relatives. One was to visit more relatives, pack (yes.. stuff as much as possible within one suitcase. Threw away old clothes which were worn on a business trip mind you, and replaced them with sweets and savories!) and do the other must do things.. 

Which was to visit two of my two favorite temples. Did a whirlwind visit to Kabali kovil on a rainy morning. 

 Have written many posts about this place.. it always brings back amazing memories, mostly of my grand father and mom and playing with my brother.. meeting my wife for the first time.. long list.. (read this old post and got happy tears thinking of grandpa)

Took a couple of snaps on the way out. The Gopuram has been freshly painted and the inside of the temple has got a face lift of sorts! 

A stone base from the 7th century with freshly painted statutes on the top! The contrast is interesting and is pretty much symbolic of everything in Chennai, when I see it with my own filters of what is new and what is old!  I could spend hours with my kids, describing the stories those statutes tell, but that has to wait for another trip, when they visit the temple. 

Spent only 30 minutes inside, but Kabali always gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling on the inside, no matter how short the visit.

Until next time... 

Guindy " National Park" - aka Childrens Park and Zoo

The Children Park and Zoo in Guindy is a 5 minute bus ride from my brothers place. It was a favorite hang out for us as kids and it is still a favorite for my nephew.

Have taken Jr. to this park when she was a baby but she did not remember it. This time we had an afternoon where yours truly was responsible for engaging the kids (add to that a power outage at home) and off we went to Guindy Park.

It is a neatly arranged park with a lot of animals, birds and reptiles for such a small park. The look and feel of it is very clean and the maintenance is excellent.

There is a kids play area where the kids just enjoyed the slides, swings and merry go rounds. They even have 4 folks sweeping the sands on a regular basis to clear out the leaves that fall in the sand.

It was a hot and very humid day and it was about to drizzle any minute. So the three male peacocks (two normal and one albino) all decided to dance. It was spectacular! Because of having to deal with three kids with two hands, decided to leave the camera bag at home.. Luckily had the iPhone with me to capture a few videos and pictures. Could not zoom past the wire fences, still the videos have come out nice.

Here are some pictures..

There are nice display boards for every enclosure!

There was a "roadrunner" bird. The one that comes in the Warner brothers cartoons and happens to be the mascot for our kids school! They were so thrilled to see a real roadrunner bird!

and here is the video collage of the trip..

The kids loved the 90 minutes we spent in the park. We had to rush back because of the drizzle. One can easily spend 3-4 hours in this park and have fun.

Totally recommended if you are in Chennai and want some shade on a sunny day and engage the kids..

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Beach fun...

We did go visit the beach once during this trip and managed to spend a little under two hours. The added bonus was the presence of the cousins.

Previous beach post from same beach here and another beach here..

This trip in pictures and video..

It was a good place to practice panning shots of the kids on the "raatnams"!

What is a beach post without a video?

We had good fun the first few days in Chennai and this beach trip was a big part of it. We were also strongly discouraged by family from going to the Marina beach. Apparently it is in bad shape compared to our last trip in 2008. We will check it out on our next trip..

Talking of trips, my MIL told the girls

"daddy is thinking of selling everything here and going to Chennai. I am going to go live in Seattle.. You girls can come visit me for summer vacation here"

Jr. : So where will we be when daddy goes to Chennai?

MIL : he will take you all with him. he is not planning to go alone

Jr. : No way! I am not going..

LO : Jumps up and runs to me and says "I WILL GO!".. then gives me a hug and says "I will go with you but first you should make sure you kill all the mosquitoes in Madras and then I will come!"

All of us laughed out loud. So my going and living in Chennai is in the hands of the Madras Corporation who are incharge of eradicating mosquitoes and the rest of Chennaivasis who have to get rid of stagnant water!

Who knows? Maybe someone will invent an eradicator and I get to convince the little one?

Top ten items that are needed to convince <10 year old girls to relocate :

1- dry bathroom floors
2- western toilets
3- toilet paper
4- central air conditioning
5- inverters that keep fan running during powercuts
6- AC cars
7- no insects (ants, flies, mosquitoes, roaches etc.)
8- clean public restrooms
9- no stench (from roadside dumps, garbage trucks stuck in traffic etc.)
10-no street dogs

There are more items on the list but this is their priority list..

Easy, no?

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Chennai is the new Venice

These photos are from Rangarajapuram, Chennai, where San's aunt lives.

The grandparents home in West Mambalam has water (knee to waist deep) inside the house. Luckiy they got grandpa and grandma out in time.

My dad who is 70+ years old has to wade in waist deep water to get out of the street in Mandaiveli. He tells me that the storm water drains that were installed mandatorily during JJ's time as CM, don't work because those tunnels are being used by cable TV operators as pre laid pipework for their cables!!! After they put the cables in, they apparently seal off the entry point for the the storm drains with concrete.

Sadly now, the rain water has nowhere to go! My dad says they have to get someone to clean the remaining drains that are clogged so that water can drain out faster.

He was consoling me saying "Even if you were here, you will also be wading with me in this water." Somewhere in the back of his mind, my not wading in that water is his way of giving me a better life and he is also so certain that my being there would not change anything! Do not know if it is based on the lack of confidence in his child or the absolute knowledge of a system that is doomed to fail, but that is how he justifies things internally.

For now, we go back to memories of making paper "kappals" and singing "Rain Rain go away"!

Things have a way of complicating themselves.

They also have a way to simplify themselves after reaching a critical oomplexity. Let us hope for that in this case!

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