The end of an era

Have not written anything in ages. We visited India to do the Varushabdhegam ceremony for my dad. A year has flown by since his passing and I had promised him over and over again that I will be there to do his rites. Planned this trip in Jan as soon as the calendar was available and dates were known.

This trip has been very challenging on every front. Physically exhausting as the best tickets were on Emirates in Jan and we had an unnecessary war to make flying through middle east miserable.

Mentally and emotionally I was oscillating between being numb to being in tears. My father saved everything. Every photo, inland letter from my college day, Aerograms from my grad school days, old photos, prizes I got, gifts, the first suitcase I took to IT-BHU, there was enough material in the attic to start a Sundar museum. Not to mention he had similar stuff for my brother and sister. Cleaning up everything and going through stuff was emotional.

Then there was a promise to go do a Pitr tharpanam in the himalayas (He did it in the late nineties) and I had no idea what to expect. Went and did it anyways. Two weeks of extreme stress, a few smiles from nostalgia here and there, some sighs of relief of things going as planned and a sense of completion and accomplishment that somehow we have done everything we possibly can for the dude to go into the afterlife.

If after all this his soul doesn’t rest in peace, when my time comes I will take a lot of people to task.

May take a lot of time to write about this trip in more detail. Given my emotional state, this will be a raw post. So after this will switch to another recent trip that never saw a mention.

Have spent three hours non stop looking at old photos and videos this evening. Had no idea 3 hours flew by. A rush of memories.. so randomly saved a few of the videos to my desktop and made the compilation at the end of this post..

My dad had a crappy childhood but he lucked out with my mom. So his life got better and better till Parkinson’s got him. I have inherited a lot of good things from him (hopefully not Parkinson’s). Going through the photos made me realize a lot of things all at once.

Still coming to terms with the fact that our vaadhyaar gave me a bunch of darbai and pavithrams and said “you are now set for a year of tharpanams”. My mom is living with my brother and finally she has seen the inside of a temple after a year of staying home. The familiar place where I would go see my dad or sing and have him nod his head or raise his eyebrows in silent appreciation is also moving on. I did get to sing a song for him one last time at the end of the ceremony. A vallalar song. He used to keep telling this story of how when I was almost 2 (before my brother was born) I would wear a towel around my head and hide behind a door. He would have to find me when coming back home from office and I would announce myself as “I am Ramalinga Adigal”. . . he would imitate me saying that as a baby. He never got tired of that story. So it was apt to sing it there.

My mom is a rock. She is probably dealing with this a lot better than any of us are. The good news is so is my wife. In some twist of fate, I have found an emotionally stoic woman like my mom who takes everything in her stride. Even for that I have to credit my dad.

I can ramble on for another four hours. So will stop here.. My mom told me not to junk anything in that house. So I took photos of 3700 photos and then cut them all up and tossed them. A bitter realization in the exercise is that once we are gone, the physical stuff we collect has to be a small curated shoe box. A few defining things. That is about it. I have 2000 books at home. Magnet boards with magnets from every place we visited, a ton of cassettes, CD’s DVD’s etc.. Not sure if anyone is ever going to look at anything.. so going to start a clean up exercise and change some habits going forward. It will be tough as it is not in my DNA. Time will tell..

My dad holding Jr. after her Mottai in 2003

A photo with my mom before we started doing the tharpanam two weeks ago..

As a child I have played cricket with this tree, climbed on the parapet walls here.. done paper kappals when the road would flood in rainy season.. it was bitter sweet walking with a lot of stuff my dad had saved, in that first suitcase he bought me for my undergrad in Varanasi.

This window view was all he had for most of the last 6 years of his life. The crows were his entertainment as he would watch the sunrise and sunset. Took this photo of a sunrise from that window..

This was the last photo I took of him when he came back from Apollo ICU in September 2024. He knew I would never see him again. Just a small wave of goodbye. He was cremated before I went and did the last rites. Living aboard has as many disadvantages as there are advantages.

We are moving on.. hopefully he is in a much better place now.

the video..

Adding this video of the Vallalar song here. Sang this a day after writing this post. Family who could not make it can listen to it. I was so emotional that afternoon that my attempt must have been a lot more flawed.

We did go do the Char dham and I did a Pitr Tarpanam in Gangothri on Ganga dushera for my dad and all ancestors. I am no Bhageeratha, but I am what my dad got. So he has to make do with my attempt.

It will be some time before I write about that. Mostly painful memories. My sincere request to folks is that this pilgrimage is not to be attempted unless you have 8 -9 days of travel time. Trying to do it in 5-6 days will be extremely painful. Also if you have any health issues or are traveling with older people, this trip is not for you!

Happy to be back home and hug the kids. Folks at work who are culturally insensitive kept asking me how my “vacation went’ inspite of me telling them this is more of an extended bereavement. Good thing I didn’t go postal.

Also don’t know why Baudhayana had to make every thing more complex for his followers. Some day if I get to meet him in spirit, my first question would be “why this kolaveri?”. The Apastambha guys seem to have it easy.

Happy to be writing in this space again.. hopefully will cheer up from tomorrow. I have a good feeling about tomorrow.

Navarathri 2024

Last year's Navarathri post is here..

We do not have the concept of Golu(Kolu) in our house. My blog readers and friends know that. However we do Saraswathi pooja and celebrate Vijayadasami. 

This year, we do not have any celebration as my oldest cousin (who is only 5 years younger than my dad and who is like a brother to my dad) passed away. To honor him there is no poojas this year.

We did go do the rounds to meet friends and participate in their golu's. Even got to sing in a few houses we visited. My guru had taught me enough small songs that I could sing without going into complicated territory. 

Here is a slide show of the Golus

and a slide show of the unique dolls.. 

the ayodhya temple replica that was built with a Ram Lalla inside probably will stay in our minds for a long time .. as was a creative mom who didn't know about Chitchen Itza but managed to realized that the Muruga doll perfectly fit on a souvenir as a base! there were many other new dolls that we saw that were not seen in past years golus. they are all in this slidshow.

As is now the new tradition, managed to match San's sarees to the best of my ability, given my diverse shirt collection.  

She definitely keeps going back to some of the sarees every year..and there were some very unique colors this year!

Here is to new beginnings!

Golpeando en el mismo lugar..

During my dancing days, used to listen to a lot of Latin music. One of my favorite artists was and is Franco de Vita and one of my favorite songs is "Golpeando en el mismo lugar".. the funny thing is that we have a similar phrase in Tamil.. "Patta kaalaye padum" which translates to "the leg that gets hit, get hits again".  

Why bring all this up? It is all in a day's thoughts inside my hamster brain. 

Recently, I tried to catch a falling heavy lens with my foot and paid a painful price for it. Then the same thing repeated. My glass lunch box, which is reasonably heavy was in the trunk. While holding it in its flimsy plastic bag and trying to close the trunk, the bag basically ruptured and my lunch box was going to hit the floor. I tried to catch it with my foot.. same foot. Now the right toe area is bruised and hurts when any weight is put on it.

This didn't stop me from going to Yoga class the last couple of days, just that my favorite poses become painful experiences. Nevertheless, I did try and sit through some poses and finish the class. 

Do not know how long it will take to heal. So far using Tiger Balm patches and warm compresses to help manage it.  So far it is getting better. 

The jet lag added to my problems. Recently I have figured out the perfect way to beat jet lag.. or so I thought. Come home on a 40 hour day and go to Yoga class before going to bed. That gets the sleep cycle back. However, what I am learning is that there is two pieces to jet lag. Sleep timings and stomach request timings. Do not know what it takes to adjust the stomach rumble times. Given the tummy wants things at odd times, ignoring that request and sleeping is not a good idea. The stomach acid catches up with you and at odd times. Have to do some more research on beating this part of jet lag. 

The only good thing that came out of this accident? I put that old CD back on the CD player and listened to it. Brought back so many memories from college days!