La Familia Peripatetica - stories from around the world!

I am writing this on the plane from Bangkok to Tokyo - I must admit that the layover in Changi airport in Singapore or a short and quiet hop such as this one is some of my favorite times - when I get time to myself to reflect a little, write a little even between catnaps. And this despite being seated between two Japanese girls one side and a Japanese-American family, with a really cute one year old baby on the other, it's a nearly meditative state. Of course "Lady in Red" playing over the earphones in low volume adds to the mood which was induced in the first place by reading Eknath Eswaran's Climbing the Blue Mountain.

One of the thoughts that crept in was how peripatetic our family has become. It was not too long ago that Leela and Krishna were living in Japan (and guess before/after that in Hong Kong/China was it?) and now in the mid-West. Ramesh of course was in Australia before his unfortunate passing away nearly two years ago now. Bala, and Dheivya are some place out West I guess and Harish continues in greater Dallas. Chitra and Ravi in London are holding the flag in Europe and Moshe did her little bit in Italy. Babu and Vidhya too put in their time in Hong Kong before making it to Canada and of course Bammi akka and Swaminathan athimbare spent all that time in the Philippines before doing the concert circuit in Chennai. Even amongst the folks in India, between Shanthi and Kumar in Delhi, Usha in Goa (when last heard from), a whole lot of us in Bangalore and of course the large base in Chennai. And that's just us cousins - our kids are already making us look like dawdlers with their travel.

Over the Christmas break, Chitra, the girls Ragini and Malini and I drove ourselves down to Chennai from Bangalore (and back)- for those of you who haven't driven cross-state recently in India (I am told Bala has done this many a times now and is probably more competent to comment on it - That's a hint bala, in case you missed it) , it was an unbelievable experience - an incredibly pleasurable and actually fun drive. We packed food for six or eight - Adigas' idlis and puris, homemade pulao, and that staple of any self respecting Tamil family on the road, thayeer sadam. Plenty of water, CDs and music for the girls and we were ready to hit the road. And what a road it was -.the toll road that links Bangalore (actually Hosur/Krishnarajapuram) to Chennai - mostly four lane and in places a six lane toll way - its an amazing reminder what can be accomplished if someone puts their mind to it. The trip reminded me of so many road trips we had made as kids, to Tanjore or Allampallam with one of the mamas driving. The amazing thing we saw, once we left Bangalore, was how much of Tamil Nadu is still green - the coconut groves, the rocky, I mean really rocky, hillocks and lush fields. And after Bangalore, the tollway felt practically empty and for better part of two hours we were able to average over 110 kmph comfortably. Make sure to try this next time you are in town!

I am still waiting for all your lurkers who have not yet piped in with your stories, thoughts, pictures and such. Whatcha waiting for?

Remembering Ramesh

A week ago, I turned forty five (thanks for all the wishes) and with Malini's birthday coming up pretty soon, my thoughts turned to the kids' birthdays. Ragini's birthday (April 4th) got me reflecting as it was on this day two years ago that our cousin Ramesh passed away. It seems as unreal to me today as it was the day I heard the news - it was only in Christmas 2004 that the two of us, with our families ran into one another at Chennai airport - they were headed back to Australia and we to San Francisco - little did I know that would be my last time seeing him and talking to him. I remember stories that my mom and Echhu periamma, narrated even recently at Harish's wedding, about how Ramesh, myself and Leela having been born just months apart were all cradle babies together at Aparajita - that if one of us woke up crying for food we'd wake up the other two and the mom's would take turns (or beg one another I guess) to placate and feed/change us.

Just two weeks ago when I was in Chennai I ran across the photo album from my 1972 upanayanam. How young (and dare I say cute) all of us looked - it was hard for me to see Ramesh in those photos and hold back my tears. One of the earliest memories I have of Ramesh, is the two of us trying to learn to ride bicycles (which we'd rent) in the Minerva College campus on Halls road. Ravi was supposedly helping us, holding the bikes while we tried to maintain our balance - Ramesh picked it up a lot quicker than me (and could easily reach the pedals, which were still a challenge for me). Swapping stories, many of which were probably tales we had gullibly believed, during the Indo-Pak war is another distinct memory from 1971. Of course playing cricket all the time, some gilli-danda, hide-and-seek and a lot of kite flying kept us busy. In 1974, I think, is when we began going to the same school, DAV on Lloyds Road. However not being in the same class, meant we did not get as much time together but on weekends we continued to meet up and play. Once I left for Banaras in 1979 we saw each other much less frequently and then Ramesh himself moved to Mumbai, Papua New Guinea and eventually Australia.

I know that Raja and Uma probably spent amongst the most time with Ramesh as cousins growing up. I'd love to hear your memories of Ramesh, and if you can share photos of Ramesh that you may have on this blog. I am sure there is some good memories and legacy out there that can make all our lives richer by sharing.

Harish's wedding in Chennai

It was Diwali, that has suddenly brought large sections of the family alive, at least on the Aparajita mail group - now the trick is to get the rest of you on to the blog and blogging like there's no tomorrow. Harish's wedding took place in the last week of October, which threatened to be one of the wettest weeks of the year. Chitra, the kids (Ragini and Malini) and I popped down to Chennai on the Shatabdi Express (which is looking more attractive each day, compared to flying to Chennai). Malini got to write a couple of poems on the train, (but that is a whole another post that I promise to do just on her poem writing) - and sooner than you could say tomato soup, we were in Chennai. It was clear and actually cool (or maybe it was only seemingly cool as I had expected it to be in the 80s) - it had rained pretty heavily the previous few days I had heard.

Getting back to Harish's wedding, it was good to see a lot of folks that I had not seen in a while, starting with Usha, who presently lives in Goa (she claims it's temporary). Took a reasonable amount of pictures, including Malini's shots of the seer varizai. She was also taken up with how much the sisters (ANP's daughters) look like one another and insisted on taking a whole lot of pictures. Check out the pictures here!

My first recollections of Thatha...

These last two days I have been laid up with a bad case of cough and bronchial spasms (guess there's got to be a first time for anything :-() but the silver lining was that I was able to thumb through my nearly ten year old writing notebook. This was the notebook I had carried with me in 1995, to Madras when Thatha passed away. I remember having cried much before I got to Aparajita but recall a good deal of laughter mixed in with the crying once I was at Aparajita - that's a story for another day.

In my notebook, in an entry dated July 7, 1996, I read "Yesterday Raghu (from Kamaraj Avenue) asked me if I missed my Thatha and I had to say yes! Thatha's role in our lives, in my life was such a large one that even though we had spent the last sixteen years apart, he was never too far from my thoughts and my heart. Though some of my earliest recollections of Thatha seem to start only around age six I am sure digging around in the crevices of my mind will find earlier memories. Giri Chitti's wedding from 1968 I seem to recall as well as the Hindi riots and protests in 69? The Indo-Pak war of 1971 is only fragmented memories of of listening to the radio, blackouts and recalling the parents concern if Bareilly had been bombed." The entry in my notebook moved on to other topics, but reading this triggered thoughts of my first memories of Thatha.

Cumulus clouds - I remember it quite distinctly - I must have been a little over six years (or maybe nine which is over six) when I recall visiting Thatha one weekend morning. "Enna da, are you learning to read at school?" he asked me. I must have replied in the affirmative, when he asked me to go to his room, and get any one volume of the Encyclopaedia Britannica from his book shelf. Once I returned with the book, he commanded, "Open it to any page!" - "What is the first word you see? Read out aloud from it" - The word was clouds and the cumulus variety figured it in a big way. After I had read it for about ten minutes, he raised his hand, in that Caesarean way of his and said "Porum - enough!" - my mom who had been quietly watching thus far was happy I could tell and Thatha himself gave me one of his famous grins. This is one of my earliest memory of actually interacting with Thatha. From that weekend, for the next six or seven years I must have interacted with him nearly twice a month or more engaging in numerous debates, serious and silly which in many ways has shaped me to be who I am. I'd love to hear from all of you out there, what your earliest recollections of Thatha's were.

Aparajita News Group...

I had fully intended to post the pictures and happenings from the family get together for my parent's 50th wedding anniversary. However having to catch up on the chores and two birthday parties (one for a four year old grand-niece and the other for a forty four year old friend) and learning about unicameral and bicameral state governments in Civics did not allow me to do that. Instead, I figured having a mailing list and a conventional (news) group would be a good way to get all of us at the very least mailing to one another.

We now have an family mail group of our own - anparasuram@yahoogroups.com. If you send an email to this address, it will be sent to all the folks on our mailing list (presently five are signed on and fifteen more are awaited). Also you can catch up on the discussions at the Aparajita group home page. Send an email to anparasuram-subscribe@yahoogroups.com to become a member.

For those of you who wondered why the mail group or this blog was not called Aparajita, the name was already taken, so I used Thatha's name instead. If you are confused by all of the above, don't worry just join in wherever it makes sense and we will get you connected.

Aparajita Awakens...

More than ten years after the launch of the first (and only) issue of Aparajita newsletter, the clan communique re-appears. The risk with such ventures always is that the start will be with a bang and with nary a whimper it may disappear in coming days/weeks. Well you can make sure that is not the case by participating not just in the blog, but getting the rest of the family linked - getting those stories, essays and rants you had always meant to share with the world published in here.

Be assured that I will be chasing down all the cousins to get them to contribute and make this a live forum. With many of the parents now being quite web and blog savvy I suspect we will see a good deal of them as well on line. All of this would not be possible without your active participation and evangelization - so let us sharpen those pencils, dust out those keyboards and get rolling.

While I wondered if we'd be better with a group on Yahoo! or Google, given their abilities to do database, photos etc., the urge to create a blog overcame such minor details. We may yet end up doing that but lets start here. I have taken the liberty of volunteering some of you as editors/posters and in turn you can invite others within the family - anyone can post comments without waiting to figure out how this thing works. See you on-line soon.