I am so not ready for this

Today my little girl walked into the house wearing long earings.. something I ahve not seen her wear before. So asked her for a portrait picture and she was okay.

Think she sees me as a hopeless person who is coming to terms with the fact that she will be going to college soon. Understanding facts and accepting them are two different things, even if it means you have gone through this experiene before on the other side. It is not much different from being a college kid who drove around everywhere on a bicycle, wishing the car drivers were more careful and when you get behind the wheel, wishing the cyclists were more careful.. or being an engineer wishing your manager grasped what your thought process was and suddenly managing a large group and wishing the engineers knew the larger constraints.. every story has a side.. and this time I want to go find that episode of Barney called Happy Mad Silly Sad.. to cheer myself up. 

Jr. was a bigtime Barney fan. However she was not the one who introduced me to Barney.. it was my college senior Vish's daughter Harita who would make me watch Barney with her everytime I visited their apartment. Then Barney was forgotten only to be played three times a day .. because Barney was the key to open Jr.'s mouth to feed her! Eventually he was replaced by the Metti Oli title song which I recorded on a VHS cassette and had to play it 5 times to finish dinner. We could not watch it past the 5th time or you would have seen headlines like "sunnyvale parents in murder suicide after being forced to watch tamil soap opera title song 1000 times a month"..  Thankfully we are past all that.. or are we?! 

We digress as usual. Now another digress about the digress..

Yours truly has been on a wait list to attend a Vipasana medidation course. It is not easy to get into this one. It was highly recommended by my yoga teacher friends. They are eagerly awaiting to see if this will help me. . It is a course where you are not allowed to speak or make eye contact with people.. My family has already started a pool of sorts on which day of the course, they will be kicking me out and accepting that their practice has failed. Readers of the blog already know how highly my family regards my ability to go on about random topics.. or my general aimlessness when it comes to conversation..

Where were we?  Jr., Earings, College, Portrait, College, Barney, rambling.. okay.. back to portraits.

Jr. was just a few months old. She was able to hold her head. We had just started taking her out to public places. Day 40 we took her to Livermore temple. Then we went for a drive along route 1. That following winter was cold. So we spent time at Great mall.. walking the entire mall with her in a stroller.. and we came across this portrait setup in the middle of the mall. We went for it. They were hesitant about a child this small.. but we were literally holding her from behind (but the hand was covered with a cloth). It was like a magic trick. She was looking at mom and grandma and smiling.. The original hangs on a frame in my office.. this is a photo of the photo.. 

Even today sometimes that is the Jr. I see.. always smiling..  and just like that she is not a kid anymore! 

Went searching for some old photos and realized that the hard drive on which they were stored is corrupted. Have to find a way to back them up more reliably. Those WD passport drives are probably guaranteed for 10 years.. time flies! 

These screensavers are going to make things more difficult, as the kids go to college. 

Right now it is not just the kids growing up.. I am growing up as well. . . 

Golu 2019

The last month has been busy.. the kids are both in high school, the travel, school calendars are blocked to a point of exhaustion.. Then comes Navarathri festival. 

This year was a mixed bag. Could visit folks only on three days.. The rest of the days were spent in pick up and drop off duties or in meetings. Also the kids did not dress up even once and visit any Golu. That was a new low. 

There were games to be played, bands to be marched in, or the self imposed ban on attending functions while on periods. In any case, someone had to step up and dress up with San.. especially after day one when I told everyone I was ready to go in my T-shirt and shorts... 

There was a lot of shaming and I decided to match her Sari.. there were a lot of compliments from friends, partly because they were all so used to seeing me in the same T-shirt that anything else was a step up. 

Then I decided to do it the other two days of golu hopping as well. . . the end result .. a photomerge to remember.. 

This year the golus saw a lot of antique dolls that were inheritences for the ladies from their grandparents.. some of them were 100 years old handed down generations.. and they are all making their way to the bay area.. Cupertino and Fremont are the New Mylapore and New Mambalam.. have said that before and will say it again!

There were also a these miniature dolls with amazing detail. None of them are more than 3-4 inches in any dimension but the intricate color work is mind boggling.

My favorite from this year..

For the first time all the photos from the Golus were taking with an iPhone 11 Pro Max.. the new phone came just in time for the Golu season and is still being figured out.. 

Slide shows of the golus..

now for the individual doll portraits.. at least these dolls were unique across the golus I attended this year.. the iPhone has a neat portrait feature and if the dolls are lifelike, it takes portraits and enhances them automatically.. to me that is a measure of how life like the dolls are..

and finally, the photoshop masterpiece..that made the experience a fun one!

This blog has been capturing local golus for almost 15 years now.. hope to keep doing that over the years.. it has been one constant that has held over time for this blog!

Happy Vijayadasami to everyone! May the start of this academic year be a good and fruitful one!

Photoshop magic..

During the function for my dad on mom  last week, I had to be performing a lot of things.. which meant my stint with the camera was done.. 

I usually don't trust others with pictures for events.. and definitely don't trust others with my camera.. however on recent trips, have been handing my camera to my baby cousin (who is not a baby anymore) and teaching her how to hold steady, focus and shoot with the 5D mark ii and she has a really good eye for composition.. told her to keep clicking and leave the rest to me to photoshop..

She did me proud.. We did hire professionals for the event but they are working on the photos. We should have great pictures in a week or two.

Saw this one pic where San has her cute dimply smile and I really wanted to make a portrait out of it.. (Credit to my cousin for cracking the right joke at the right time!).. 

The background.. I needed some recently shot greenery.. and the photo from Amethyst gave me an idea..

So here is 2+2=6..

The original..

the background from a group photo..

and the end result..

Have been lost in photoshop for a long time.. work calls tomorrow. My cold is almost bearable.. have been doing yoga everyday during the break and resting and working on photoshop as a good distraction.

Also my wife is back from India and that alone is a big relief.. my girls know how to press my buttons and get anything they want and sometimes I don't know if I am authorized to authorize things.. good that the big boss is back in the approval loop.

Ta ta for now..