More matching dresses, courtesy of the local Target store and the kids school for making their own "tie-dye" shirts..
Goes without saying that the kids will give me one good pose and one "kurangu" (monkey) pose for every photo shoot.. Apparently that is their norm.. the photographer just found out about this today.
They make great models. Was worried that the 5D has developed a focus issue of sorts but after cleaning the lenses and mounting pins carefully, looks like there are no big issues..
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..
My visit to Varanasi aka Banaras for a few days made me realize why Salmon get so much hype when they swim upstream to visit their birthplace!
Twenty two years since I first set foot in Banaras as a kid who had not yet sprouted a moustache, it was a wonderful experience to just go stand in the place where I spent most of my happy times..
No, not the Department of Metallurgical engineering (which gets a 2nd place) or my hostels but the chai shop that made me want to wake up on many winter mornings and may have been the single motivating factor for going anywhere outside the hostel on hot summer days!
The highlight of this India trip was two days in Varanasi and one day in Allahabad. The rest of the trip was a little on the dark and gloomy side what with us coming to grips with "Chennai becoming a large scale old age home", not my words but my mothers!
Back to lighter subjects... Chai!
Jr. was the only one brave enough in the family to volunteer to take the EOS 5D and shoot this picture. Gave her a crash course in holding a heavy camera so we could get this moment saved for the blog.
There were changes. The son runs the shop now after 20+ years. We used to see him as a small boy running around the shop. Missed the old mans smiling face, but the young Bihari is a replica of the father. He even spoke through gritted teeth with his paan filled mouth and said "photo keechna hai to keechiye saab!". He must be used to it with all the alumni coming to relive their chai drinking days!
His dad used to make special "tulsi" chai for me when I would come wheezing into his shop on some winter days and give me advice on how to deal with breathing problems.
Today, the gutter that runs between the shop and the place where we eat still flows like a mini ganges. Prices are in line with inflation. Probably the only thing that was inline in the trip. A chai used to be 75 paise and a samosa 1 rupee. Today the Chai was 3 rupees (4x) and the samosa 5 rupees (5x). Prices double every 10 years at 5% inflation and in quadruple every 4 years. We might as well graph inflation with the Bihari Chai price index!
While the price and the generation have changed, the taste of the Chai and the samosa have not changed a bit.
Absolutely divine!
More on my eating and drinking nostalgia binge tomorrow..
ps. Never missed a certain Durgaprasad Rajaram more than those few minutes at that tea shop. .
When we went shopping for clothes, as soon as we landed in India, my thoughts on getting the kids matching outfits got a very critical response from the Mrs..
You are like Wagle in Wagle ki Duniya! Do you remember how he dressed his kids in matching outfits?
The comment initially drew a big blank from me because the time this serial was being telecast, yours truly was working hard to earn the title of "star maggu" in school and college. Nevertheless, my reasoning was apparently the same as Mr. Wagle! Save money by reducing cloth wastage! Per crude back of the receipt book calculations of three different Chennai tailors, one can save anywhere from .2 to .4 meters of cloth to stitch two salwars if you buy the "same" cloth for both girls.
After these critical looks and comments, we mutually agreed to do Wagle with a twist. Same pattern cloth, different color or design for the two girls. We get some level of matching but lose the cost saving bit.
Here is the first in a series of photos of the semi-matching outfits...
Having promised photos of the improved me for the last three months, we finally had a breakthrough today..
a. We just came back from class at 10 b. It was hot outside and we were still flexible after the class c. MIL decided to help me with the photographing considering San has been against this post and idea from the get go..
Again, you have to realize that there are two ordinary people in the photos, but we looked a lot worse before starting yoga! MIL has lost 30+ lbs, I have lost 15 lbs in the last 100 days. We have both reduced a lot of weight in the tummy, thigh area and our shoulders, arms and calves have become a lot stronger!
There was a big big tummy that spread out like North America on the world map.. it has now gone. There is now a dimple(?!) in its place on either side of the stomach... Just wish it would stay here and not expand again..
This is why it was so difficult to get the pictures with a self timer. . you want good focus, with a zoom lens and sometimes.. you just miss your suject and get a nice picture of the fence!
But you get the idea!
It was not a good idea to put the mat on the grass and take pictures because we were not on firm ground, but there had to be come optimization between posing and good photos..
If my waistline improves any further or my muscle tone gets better over time, will post photos in another three months..
The real achiever here is the MIL. She has been tenacious and in her third week she still could not sit down with her knees bent and her butt on the floor between her knees... Now she just eases into it!
Saturday, July 16, 2011 at 7:27PM 
