celebration

Tamil New year 2019

Another year rolls by.. and this year I had to explain to kids why Tamil New years day is as important to me as Jan 1st. They saw it as something less to celebrate.. the world turns irrespective of our celebrating and all these days are random markers in time .. birthdays, new years based on different dates.. etc.

I had to tell them about the history of New years on Jan 1st and how things have changed just in 2000 years with respect to Jan 1. The Tamil year system is more complex but the new Years is April 14th. 

We went to the temple yesterday given it was Rama Navami and decided to stay put at home today. There is 4 temples in the area and they are all super crowded. So we prayed for a good new year on "new year's eve" I guess! 

We were glad to have some friends visit us for lunch. The highlight was San's friends parents who came and blessed us with all their heart. To me, that is always what I miss about Tamil New Year here. When in India, you go to older relatvies and get their blessing.. Here I look around and realize that I AM the older relative!!! (when my MIL is not around). 

My MIL was happy today as well as she was superseeded by folks who could bless her! 

and what is a new years post without a family portrait?!

I am not exactly jet lagged but tired. It was time to turn on the sprinkler system today and I have not spent much time in the backyard in ages.. so went to check on things and ended up pulling out a lot of weeds.. some of them got to me. So I had puffy eyes for the pictures.. 

My saluations to all the elders on New Years and my blessings to all my younger family members.. Yes, I am now old enough to start blessing people as well as receive blessings.. 

This years name is Vihari, which is the 32nd of the 60 year cycle.. Wikipedia may not be the best source for this information (whenever westerners get to write or rewrite history..  a lot is lost in factual accuracy and translation)..but for what it is worth here is the link..

Given 2019 as a year did not start well for me.. counting on Vihari being a good year for me.. we can always count new years different ways, no?! 

That alone tells you that it really does not matter where the count starts. It is a good reason to celebrate, thank your stars and more importantly thank your elders and make sure you understand your responsibility as an older person to set an example for the young ones on this pretext.

The earth continues revolving and that is a good thing..

Even a rainbow might feel under dressed

This weekend we celebrated Holi in Union city with friends. Many years ago, we made this a local event in a park in Cupertino.. but that was just the 15-18 of our close gathering.. last three years we decided to join a much bigger crowd of a few thousand people and it is a lot more fun!

As usual I get to take pictures of the group and send to everyone. I love editing photos of the happy faces after coming home as much as jumping up and down with colors everywhere! 

and then there are the kids.. just amazing.. innocent.. putting colors on themselves and everyone.

I had put some of this on FB already, but given my FB acts up and no one knows what will happen over time, posting some of that in the blog as well. 

One thing that is amazing is that playing Holi with strangers or friends and family works the same. San and jr. went into the crowd to meet our friends. As I walked into the crowd with a heavy camera bag on one shoulder and a camera on my hand ( I had to protect the lens from being powdered!!) a kid came running out of nowhere and hit hit head on my lens.. By the time I checked to make sure he was fine, he ran into the crowd. Now I was lost.. trying to stand on tippy toes to see if there was any chance of locating the tallest person in our group.. while doing that a group of strangers asked me if they could put color on me. I said yes and they promptly colored me! Then they shared their colors with me to put it back on them. 

At this point I would not have recognized myself anyway and when I finally found our group, they were all giving me the look that said "so, you have already been playing Holi with someone else all this time!" . 

Also the group is totally international and inter racial. Probably there were people from every country in the world there.. not to mention pet dogs. Even the dogs were colored and they seemed to be enjoying it! 

Some pictures from the celebration..

A picture of the kids taking a selfie.. it is my favorite shot of the entire album.. I would like to see that actual picture. They never smiled like that when posing for me.. but their smiles on the selfie must be priceless!! 

Also made a composite of all the recent Holi celebrations.. Missed the little one the last few years. She always ends up with a conflict of sorts on these days. Next year I have begged her to come celebrate with us...

Finally, a video with snippets that were recorded partly with iPhone and partly with the 5D Mark ii... that shows how grand this was!

The bay area is truly an amazing place.. We get to celebrate everything in style! 

Happy Holi to everyone! May your life be colorful and bright !!

Birthday happiness

Last year was 45. Folks reminded me that once you cross 45, you become less employable, etc. etc.

This year had the same birthday ingredients and that is a good thing. Last year's birthday was on the day before Thanksgiving and ended up at the company party.

This year, the birthday ended up being on Thanksgiving. The company picnic was interesting.. we had caricature artists which was a lot of fun. 

This is a collage of two different caricature artists interpretation, a selfie at the party and a picture of me the next morning.

guess the profile of how you sit down in front of the artist makes him draw you with a long face or a round face.. 

The actual birthday started with Yoga bright and early.

By the time I got back home, showered and made and drank tea, no one had woken up. That was still teh state for another hour and finally the family woke up one by one.. we were in Vacation mode, and it was a good thing!

Then came Lunch at my favorite place.. Bhavika aunty made me "mini" pooran poli's. I call them Personal-Pan-Poli's. They were absolutely yummy.  The entire Bhavika's family was surprised by my Swamiji look. Told them it is just a temporary experiment. 

Then there was a post lunch get together with friends, where again folks who had not seen me in some time were pop quizzing me on the new look. There was the group photo where the rudraksham was put outside the sweater.. so they could lay claim to having known Swamiji before he became an internet sensation.... the jokes were all good. Looks like all one has to do is:

1. Stop shaving

2. Declare an intent to add "ananda" or "saraswathi" to one name

3. be able to come up with some wise ass remarks

4. give an all knowing sarcastic smile

5. insult the intelligence of anyone who is willing to listen to you 

and a moment creates itself around you! Next thing you know, Sri Sundarananda Saraswathi is the water cooler topic.. 

There was a special banana bread for me to cut.. which was yummy.. by this time I was ready to be the acting double for the burmese python in the Harry Potter movies...

This year I also got my other wish.. an afternoon nap on my birthday! 

Then came the India women playing the England women at the World T20 Cricket semi finals and they lost big time. This was an undefeated team till the Semi finals.. and they just lost it. It was a good reminder for me that I was a lucky guy to have a lot of things go my way so far.. 

Was also thinking about my grandpa a lot be it at the company party or on my birthday. It has been 9 years since he passed away. Listented to him reciting slokas for a good 30 minutes and recited along with him. Thanks to technology this is possible!

Then we went to spend the evening with friends, have Italian food for dinner, music, games and finally called it a night. It was past midnight when we got home. 

It was a fun evening spent with smiles all around!

My friend also gave me her one word review of the beard "sahikkalai"! (unberable) which created some instant solidarity moments between the rest of my family members and her. There is a new Swami Army in town and it is hell bent on "making Swamiji Sundar again"

The only thing which we could not cram on the birthday wishlist was to go for a movie. Usually I go to a Bond movie, Harry Potter Movie or Marvel movie on my birthday with San, MIL, kids or whoever from that combination will come to the movie with me (also depends on the movie). Last year San and me went for Justice League. 

This year I wanted to see Venom first as it was already going out of a lot of theaters. It was going to be like a "Stan Lee homage visit". There were no favorable show times.. so we went to see Venom today. 

While driving there San started pop quzzing me "who is the hero? who is the heroine? etc." and I got worried. There were some expectations to set.

Me : We are going to a movie titled "venom". he is not even a good superhero. He is more like a supervillain type.. this is not a chick flick ! There are no songs, duets etc. etc.. I don't know the full story but heard there is a twist at the end of the movie. 

San was betting that no matter what, there had to be a hero, heroine, love angle, villain for any Marvel movie to work and I was shaking my head..

We came out of the movie with the realization that she was right! Both of us liked this movie. 

The birthday has now come and gone but we will use this excuse to watch another movie or two over what is left of the long weekend. Then it will be pedal to the metal again till Christmas. 

My birthday events are getting predictable and to me that is a good thing.

It has been a good week so far! Hope this year finishes off on a good note!