Amritha and I are fortunate to hear a variety of bird-sounds every morning as we walk in our compound from 5.10 A.M. Since I wanted all of you to enjoy them, I have provided the sound of Robin which you'll hear just once whenever this page is loaded.
This Newsletter has the maximum contributions from relatives (seven in all). Two articles - one by Prasad and the other by Kausalya - are from other publications.
Prasad has written an article about the past tournaments in Dortmund in www.chessbase.com This is what the write-up says.
'Looking back at Dortmund
The Chess Meeting 2003 in Dortmund is the 31st edition of Germany's strongest tournament.
Ram Prasad, a Chicago-based software engineer and chess junkie, gets us into
the mood for this year's action with an illustrated year-by-year look at the
Chess Meetings of recent past. A must-read article.'
It is definitely a fascinating and must-read article.
Last issue featured Kausalya's article on Arunachal Pradesh. This issue features her article on Pataudis which appeared in Sunday Hindu on 3rd August 2003.
Kannan is back with his Early years and covers his life in Thanjavur and Trichy. Gopalan continues with his humour in Down the memory lane and has written another hilarious piece on the inimitable Mr. X. Sudarshan's compilation of funny incidents was concluded last month. But he has continued to contribute two pieces - one being an article - My Internet Encounters and the other being Jokes, Quotes and Trivia. When I wrote to Prasad asking for his contribution, he wrote, 'It will be much smaller than usual. I want to try something different and see how that works.' It is untitled, very much different and bound to evoke a variety of reactions.
Since we were extremely busy, neither Amritha nor I found time to write any article. But I have compiled all the other usual features, viz. My diary for July, Crossword Clues , Brain Exercisers and Cryptoquip.Editor's Picks at the bottom of this page contain a cartoon and an interesting link - A collection of jokes in Tamil.
The section 'FROM THE NET' contains seven articles. Two are thought-provoking articles - one on 'Science and God' sent by Raghu and another about Measuring the Height of a Building. The remaining five are humorous articles, including one hilarious piece -Church Bulletin said What?! sent by Prasad.
Let me again remind everyone about the Archives www.geocities.com/pamrithaarchives, which is a comprehensive authorwise, subjectwise and monthwise archives. It includes everything that was published in the first 28 issues from December 2000 to April 2003 - all the articles, poems, games, photos and everything else. Of course all the close relatives in India as well as Mohan can view these in the CD-ROM that I have given them.
Enjoy the Newsletter, but do write about it.
Have you visited my redesigned home yet?....
If not, click on
Photo taken at my father-in-law's 60th birthday in 1977, I think.
Chandra with Vidya in 1983.
MY DIARY FOR JULY
Right now we are commuting often to the Railway Hospital (which fortunately is nearby), where my mother has been admitted since 8th August. She is in the ICU and we hope and pray she comes home soon. My brother flew in from Bombay and my sister cancelled her trip to Bangalore and Puttaparthi, which was to start on the 8th.
Summer Weddings My nephew, Shriram got married in July. The wedding was very well-celebrated and the tiffin items were top-class. I had not seen so many items being prepared for breakfast in an Iyengar wedding. Amritha had a busy time as she attended all the related functions. We also attended the reception of another wedding which was on the same day as my nephew's.
Tell my wife I won't come home for lunch July 14th was an important day, as from that day I decided to have my lunch in the office. When I look back, I feel I've been extremely lucky as I have always gone home for lunch except for about 2 years in my 30 years of married life. The first occasion was in Secunderabad for about 8 months, next was in Bombay for 6 months when I commuted from Anushakti Nagar to VT and the third was also in Bombay for about 6 months when I commuted from Juhu to Churchgate.
Carnatic concert We attended two more concerts in July, including one by the famous T.V.sankara Narayanan (TVS). I am trying to get to grips with the nuances of a concert. For example, did you know that 'Ragam, Tanam, Pallavi' is the centerpiece of a Carnatic music concert? Coming back to TVS, he sings with zest and exuberance and loudly appreciates his accompanists. I didn't understand earlier when I read that the Kacheri took off in the very beginning . TVS was in full flow from the second minute of the concert. The other concert by Rajini Hariharan was also good.
Annalakshmi and GRT It was for the first time that we visited two high-end restaurants on the same day - one for lunch and the other for dinner. On 27th July, Rukku turned 60 and a lunch was hosted at Annalakshmi on Mount Road. It is run by a charitable organisation based in Singapore and all the people who serve food are volunteers. The food was quite good, but I didn't feel it was value-for-money. (However Raghu wrote,' In the same hotel in Malaysia there is no price tag for any item. You can eat as much as you want and pay what you feel like or not pay at all? No questions asked! It is a charity organisation and normally people pay liberally after the meal.') That evening, we went to the G.R.T.hotel which is a 4-star hotel to attend Vasu's (my cousin) 40th birthday. It was a grand affair. A huge hall named Emeraldo was booked for 80 to 90 people and was well decorated. The party was a surprise for Vasu arranged by her husband. I found this place to be value-for-money as this cost about two-third of Annalakshmi.
Tirupathi laddus July was a month in which we received Tirupathi laddus 5 or 6 times. People say the quality of the laddus has deteriorated, but they are not easily available. I read somewhere that the income from laddus is a few crores every year. July was also the month in which our family members (Kannan and Rajeevi) performed voluntary service in Tirupathi through a NGO.
Surprise, surprise Aarthi used to complain that our life is so predictable and boring. So I thought once in a while I'd change my routine and surprise others. Hema got a surprise visit from me and Amritha on a Sunday when we went from the airport to her place. I rang her up outside her house from my mobile and told her to go to the Railway station urgently to see a rare event. She came out and was surprised to see us. We had taken breakfast with us and so had a nice picnic.
Mail of the month Chandra had wanted to know from Amritha what are the items made by her for tiffin. So Amritha had given a complete list of the tiffin items she makes. This was also sent to the US-based relatives in our weekly mail to them. In reply, Prasda wrote 'The paragraph above should be classified as torture! It's Monday morning and I've come here after a cup of coffee and a slice of toast. I tell you, it is not easy to read all this. Each use of the word "or" hurt!'.
*Disclaimer *Some of the articles and images reproduced here have been taken from various sources and I am not aware of
any copyright violations. If there are any such violations, please write to me and the concerned article will be promptly removed.
Right now we are commuting often to the Railway Hospital (which fortunately is nearby), where my mother has been admitted since 8th August. She is in the ICU and we hope and pray she comes home soon. My brother flew in from Bombay and my sister cancelled her trip to Bangalore and Puttaparthi, which was to start on the 8th.
. TVS was in full flow from the second minute of the concert. The other concert by Rajini Hariharan was also good.
