Celebrating Deepavali in India

It has been 25 years since I was in India for a Deepavali ! You can celebrate all you want in the US of A with family and friends, but somehow nothing comes close to being in India on Deepavali day!

On a whim, got last minute tickets to go to India straight from my business trip and spent the weekend in Chennai. I have spent 3 days with my parents in the last two years and made a promise that will go see them even if it was a solo trip without wife and kids and even if it was only for a weekend. Glad that I made it.

San got me tickets on Air Asia. That was an interesting thing in itself. These guys take the Airbus flying quite literally. It is like a local "bus" ride in the "Air". They take this "low cost airline" concept to an all new level. An unnecessary security check within their own gates to throw out my water bottle and then charge for water on the flight! It was an all time low on my flying experience list. Once I reached Chennai and got a bear hug from my niece, that was temporarily forgotten. 

Then I got to see my dad, which was one main reason for going. He has tremors now and is conscious of it. So he doesn't come to the phone or skype often. That said, he manages it pretty well. He knows when he cannot talk and stays silent and is very meditative. When the tremors subside, he is normal and goes about his usual activities. 

He asked me to take pictures of him this time...

Then there was our second failed attempt at recreation of the old picture routine.. 

Lots of fireworks! 

Lots of fireworks.. 

I taught my nephew how to hold an oothubaththi to a Kuruvi vedi and that experience alone was priceless. The poor kid had fractured his arm and was just out of his cast, but was so hyped up that he was running around the terrace with me in all that excitement. 

He reminded me of someone all the time... me!

My niece did my hair and make up as part of Diwali and I sat through it patiently thinking "my sister used to comb my hair for hours, then my kids did it.. you are probably the last one to get the experience of combing my hair as there is not much left to comb these days!"

Fireworks are not the same anymore from when we were kids.. They sell these fireworks where each piece is like a long tube and they are like 4th of July fireworks, expensive and fancy. 500 rupees for just one piece but very nice. The entire city was lit up with these things! It was non stop from every roof top. Just an amazing sight to watch. The smiles on the kids faces.. it is something to see when every kid you walk by is just all smiles! 

Here is a video composite of the whole fireworks experience.. this doesn't even come close to being there!

(WARNING : the background noise in this video is very high !) 

Then there was the sweets and savories. My mom made sure that 177 yoga classes for the year were nullified in 177 minutes. To summarize "she kept me well fed" for the three days. By day two, I started saying "enough" before she even put anything on my plate, because she would continue to pile it on my plate for a good two seconds after my saying stop! Some things never change. Had just told my brother to lose weight and go do some yoga and he gave me a look and a smile that said "if you live with mom in the house, no amount of yoga is going to get your weight down". He was right. Have put on a good 5 lbs in 3 days!

If you are wondering how come I have eyes only for San.. look no further.. think there is a gene for that which gets passed on.. 

It has been one hectic but memorable trip! 

Heartfelt wishes, belated as they may be, for everyone's lives to be filled with light and happiness! 

Navarathri Golu 2016

This year we had Navarathri over two weekends, which is always a plus compared to it being spread only over one weekend!

Was way busy with work and had just come back from another overseas trip at the beginning of the festival. Wife, MIL and kids made it to all the Golu's while I chauffered them to select places over the weekends only. They took pictures of Golu's I missed so we can add it to the blog.

The highlight of this years festival was these two photos which we will cherish for a long time. Many thanks to our friends for the clicks and cracking the right jokes at the right time!

 

You need two things for good family pictures. Good lighting and good jokes that the entire family can get!

Then there were the golus. Neat and clean and simple, to complex to creative! Best part was to see the little displays the kids create on window sills and on the floor next to the Golus.. National parks, Hamma bead towns, cricket sets.. you can see they all are still setting classic three slips and a gully while the New Zealand team is now going to a field set up that has only third slip and gully!.. okay, where was I? yes, Golus!

We also had kids sing and dance and Jr. played the saxophone in two of the Golus. She is getting better. I get berated by my friends for giving her "feedback" after her performance, which is interesting in its own way. 

Here is a video of her doing the Thillana this year.

Hope next year she will do the entire piece without any mistakes. I am very proud of her, but given her ability, if she just practiced a little more instead of two days before the festival starts, she could have aced the whole thing! 

Finally the Golus.. enjoy the slideshow!  

Thanks to all our friends who invited us this year. It was fun. Next year, will try to visit everyone!

Enna Vechchu comedy kemedy pannaliye ?! (Not making me a comedy piece right?!)

That is a popular punch line of Tamil comedian Vadivelu (one of my favorites).  That seems to have already happened to me.. have become a comedy piece, literally!

Many of my friends and family who watch Vijay TV, have told me that they have a program called Comedy Starz where they used my picture as a "prop".. 

Got the whole thing on video here..

There is some good and lot of bad in this.

Good : Yoga gets some more popularity

Bad : Yoga is still seen as some kind of magic, illusion or rope trick (you see the way the compere ends it? that is the way illusions and rope tricks are presented by street performers).

Also, there is a way to get in and out of a yoga pose. When Jim Kallet was at BYSJ to teach a special class he told the teachers "never get into the pose in the beginner class using an advanced way. I saw this teacher do it in the front row. A football player was behind her in the second row. He was new. He copied her and we literally heard his knees go pop .. pop. He permanently damaged his knee. You can mess with the gods, but you can never mess with your knees".  People do things the wrong way and Yoga gets a bad name. 

Someday will post a video of doing this toe stand, or if BYSJ has one, will link it here. 

There is another bad side to this. Everytime a photo from the blog gets used somewhere (remember 80 feet cut outs of Junior bursting fire crackers in Chennai?), the family is up in arms and wants to shut down all my social media accounts from Facebook, to the blog to twitter, etc. Some will comment and say "get some money out of those guys" to which my response is "the day Indian media companies actually pay anything to take stuff.. that day will never come". Others just go to all out fear mongering "now every terrorist knows about you and your family" to which my reponse is "so the terrorists are all going to start doing yoga? That would actually be a good thing because there won't be any terrorism after they start yoga and do it for a few months!".

If anything, Yoga helps you let go and move on.. so AaaaaUuuuuuuuMmmmmmmmm ! 

This too shall pass!

Niagara Falls

This travelog is long overdue! During the summer, we made a trip to Pittsburgh to visit my Sister-in-law, the local family matriarch! 

As soon as we settled in, there was a trip to Niagra falls. It was a good 4 hour drive to the falls. We spent a good 5 hours there and drove back by 10PM after a dinner stop at a Travel stop Pizza hut. Did not realize how long it has been since I had Pizza hut pizza! 

It was a nice drive along lake Erie with my niece and her hubby who also joined us. I remember her as a small kid of 5 or 6! Now she is married and is running a family. How time flies! 

We had a greally great time as we went on the Maid of the Mist to see the falls. Some of the pictures are from the 5D. Then at some point the lens got completely wet. It is a weather proof lens but it was practically getting drenched. Given waterproof and weatherproof are two different things, decided to switch to the iPhone. 

 

My niece was limping by that time because her knee was acting up. So the five of us went on to see Hurricane ridge at the Cave of the Winds. The kids loved it so much that they wanted to go back and stand in the falls again and again. 

Finally when we could no longer breathe, we turned back towards the parking lot. The air is so heavy with the mist that you walk but feel like you are drowning. 

The last time we visited Niagara falls was at least 10 years ago. I am trying to dig out the old photos and videos. Not sure if the little one was born or not during that trip. 

In a few years we plan to go back, to the Canadian side and stay till late in the night to see the falls with lighting! We are at a stage where the kids are comfortable taking care of themselves, there are no diapers to change, no feeding breaks.. we should capitalize on this phase while the parents still have energy to go on hikes, lug suitcases etc.

The trip was all the more fun as daddy Narayanan explained the family tree on the fathers side starting from kid 1 to kid 12 over a one hour period.

It was a big hit with Jr. !

On a final note, what is a post on Niagara falls, without a video?!

Niagara falls continues to be a big hit with the family! Cannot wait to go back!

Bhanja Bhangra

It has been a very busy two weeks with some flying, long distance driving and lots happening at home and work. Finally got to editing the pictures from our LA trip to cheer my nephew on his Bhangra dance competition. 

Also got to get the video sorted out.  The family has matching T-shirts now, thanks to my sister-in-law. There was a special one for the start which said "RAM"

and the rest of us have Family on the back.. 

First Class Bhangra is the name of the group he was with and they did an outstanding job. Almost two dozen dancers on stage doing formations. 

The background sceen never touched the floor and the kids kept leaving their props on the corner. Did not make for good pictures. If you see the photo below, it was a lot of work to clear up those props on photoshop. Wish I could write a macro for that! 

The costumes, the energy of the crowd, the quality of the effort these kids put in to the 5-6 minute numbers was amazing! 

We were not happy with the Orpheum theater though. The event started an hour late and we had small kids in the group. They refused to let us bring food into the theater, didn't have anything other than chips and beer at their store and did not allow re-entry into the theater if we were to go out eat something outside and come back. So we had to leave halfway into the program.

We took this selfie after reaching the hotel room.. 

For those of you who were wishing there was a video.. well, here it is. Took 10 second clips of other teams, but the highlight for us was First Class Bhangra.

There were teams from bay area as well in the competition. Hoping that they have the competition here next time. 

Now that we have a good idea what to expect, will be better prepared as a parent and as a photographer the next time we go to a Bhangra competition. 

All said and done, it was a great evening. The music kept going in my ears till we were back home and every now and then wanted to jump up in the air and go Balle Balle!