Your favourite Family magazine is back after a two-month gap. This issue should have come out on 1st December. But since I was busy travelling and also since the contributors delayed their articles, this is being published on 11th. I was happy to get a positive feedback for the last issue which was on the serious side.
In the last issue, I provided the sound of the chanting of Gayatri Mantra whenever this page was loaded. This time it is Nadaswaram for two reasons- the first is to welcome 2004 with an auspicious sound and the second is that I am deeply into Carnatic Music. The music will repeat twice whenever this page is loaded.
Another bumper issue as far as relatives' contributions are concerned. Kannan is back with his Early Days-IV. In this month's article, he compares the Pollachi of his college days in the 50s with the Pollachi of 2003 where his son Jagan has his first posting as sub-collector. Last issue featured Kausalya's article on the problems of the elderly. This time I am reproducing her article on Mysore Royal vignettes: Mysore - A name, a heritage published in Sunday Hindu in September 2003. Prasad continues to scintillate with another autobiographical article (though in the third person) titled Snow, which as always makes interesting reading. Gopalan has written movingly about our mother in the second and concluding part of his article My mother's Last Days. Radha has contributed an interesting piece in Tamil on how words change. Sudarshan has continued to contribute Jokes, Quotes and Trivia. Raghu has forwarded an interesting article from Sydney Morning Herald titled 101 excuses for a dead cat, which is in the section 'FROM THE NET'. Mukund has sent photos on his visit to Paris titled 'Think Paris'
All the other usual features, viz. My diary for October & November, Crossword Clues , Brain Exercisers and Cryptoquip. are there. I have also reintroduced 'Fun with photo' in which you can scramble and unscramble an old photo of our relative. I am sure all of you can make out the persons in that photo.I have also reproduced 'More Sardarji Jokes' collected from the net..
Do you want to make some New Year Resolutions? If yes, please go to Editor's Picks at the bottom of this page. Editor's Picks also contains one of the most comprehensive Carnatic Music links.
What happens when a person dies? Doctors and philosophers have pondered over this question for ages. Science now seems to be closing in for an answer as you will find from the article Near proof for near-death in the section 'FROM THE NET'.This section also contains the funny piece - Advertisements and such. You can also know the Zodiac Sign if you know the date and month of birth in this Javascript Program Know Your Zodiac Sign
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.
Enjoy the Newsletter, but do write about it.
Have you visited my redesigned home yet?....
If not, click on
Kannan, Rajeevi, Prasad and Mukund with me, Amritha and Raghu when they visited Secunderabad in 1974/1975
A TO Z OF MY DIARY FOR OCTOBER & NOVEMBER
Aarthi Aarthi came twice in these two months. The first was on 2nd October and left on 5th when she got three days' holidays. During that period she visited the dentist, relatives and Spencer Plaza. Her trains were late on 2nd as well as on 5th. Poor Madhu! He waited for 21/2 hours on 2nd and 5th. Aarthi had lleft her 2-wheeler in Madhu's place and Madhu left her at the station in his 2 wheeler. Her second visit was on 22nd October when she had about 10 days' vacation for Deepavali. She went to the India-New Zealand ODI on 23rd, which unfortunately was washed out after 25 overs. She was grumbling about absence of her favourite channels, but stopped it after buying a few CDs and DVDs. After spending 4 days here, she left for Mumbai to meet her old friends and returned to Bangalore after spending a day in Pune, where Harish also met her. She said she'd send a snap of her two-wheeler, Yamaha RX-100, for the Newsletter, but didn't.
Carnatic Music We attended only two concerts. Hema and Aarthi also came with us for the concert by Hyderabad Brothers on 25th October. It was good. I also made a MP-3 CD with Carnatic Music and film songs in 53 Ragams for Amritha's 53rd birthday. I hope to have a comprehensive website in the next six months.
Cricket Cricket mania was back with the TVS Cup. Though India lost the final (which was a winnable match) the series was good. The poor performance of New Zealand here as well as in Pakistan is surprising.
Divya Desams
Amritha and I had visited nine Divya Desam temples in September. We continued our religious quest with visits to 12 more Divya Desams in November. These included the famous nava Tirupathis near Tirunelveli. The remaining three are near Madurai. We also visited Madurai Meenakshi Temple (for Amritha's birthday) , Nellaiappar / Kantimathi temple in Tirunelveli and Krishnapuram Perumal Temple. Though the last one was closed when we reached there, we could see excellent sculptures in the courtyard.
Films We saw two films in these two months - one each in Tamil and Hindi. The Tamil film was 'Unnai Saran Adaindhen', a film produced by SPB and has his son and Gangai Amaran's son in the main roles. It is a different type and was good except that the end was unnecessarily long. The Hindi movie was 'Bhagbaan', starring Amitabh and
Hemamalini. It was good. Both of them acted well and Hemamalini was looking
very pretty. The dialogue delivery by Amitabh at the end of the film was
as good as it was 30 years ago in Zanjeer. We enjoyed the
happenings inside the theatre also. The crowd mostly consisted of North
Indians,especially Gujaratis who came there to have a picnic rather than to
watch the movie. The picture started at 6-30 and these people were coming
in 3s and 4s with lots of eatables in both their hands. We saw one person
with the biggest popcorn container we've ever seen. They were not watching the film but were eating and talking.
Harish Harish came here on 25th October and returned on 29th. Though he usually makes us tense when he leaves by delaying his departure, he was prompt this time.
Hema Hema is happy whenever my boss (FC) visits Chennai. This is since I have to go to the airport to receive my FC. And everytime I go to airport, Amritha and I visit Hema's house which is just 10 minutes away from airport. We went twice to her house in October and November.
Karuna Karuna is the special school run by ICF Women's Organisation for physically challenged children and are doing a tremendous job. We attended Karuna's Annual Day Function on 25th October, which had a number of items presented by the handicapped children and their parents, which was, like last year, a moving sight. An young couple have volunteered to make a documentary on Karuna after reading about it in Indian Express.
Mother's masyam
On 2nd October which was a holiday for Gandhi Jayanti, we went to Triplicane for my mother's Oona masyam (after 45 days) (I don't know why it is called Oona masyam). The second and third Masyams were performed on October 18th and November 17th at the same place.
Mother-in-law
Jaya akka came here on 4th October and was keeping good health except for a minor mishap on 21st when she fell down and injured herself. She had a deep cut which had to be stitched. She became fully all right in two weeks and went to Kannan's place on 22nd November when we went to Madurai. She saw a few movies ranging from Maya Bazaar, Mitr, My friend and Pitamagan on VCD. (Amritha and I are yet to see Pitamagan as I wanted to see it only in the theatre).
Mumbai I visited Mumbai in October for three days,when Harish came there for the weekend. Both of us saw 'Chupke, Chupke', a Hindi play featuring Zeenat Aman. It was good. On my return, my lap-top got swapped with someone else's and went to Delhi before I could get it back. I hope to write about it in one of the future issues. Amritha and I visited Mumbai for four days from 27th to 30th November. We attended the Grihapravesam of my niece, Usha's house. Harish also reached there on 27th night. We three left at 6 in the morning on 28th to Thane as the muhurtham for the homam was from 6-30 to 8-30. On our way we picked up Srivatsan. Usha's house is very nice. She has renovated the house nicely to suit their needs. The food was also very good. Harish left the same night for Pune to attend his friend's sister's marriage. The next day we spent most of the time in Mr. Ramasubramanian's (my collegemate at Guindy and also one year senior to him in Rlys in Signal and telecommunications dept.) house. His wife Prabha is a very good friend of Amritha. We were together at Baroda. Our common friend Mr.Krishnamurthy, also was in Bombay at that time and he too came to Mr.Ramasubramanian's house and we had a very good time with them as well as Ramasubramanian's 7-month old grandson.
Other travels I went to Trichy for a day each twice. I also went to Secunderabad for a day and Delhi for a day. On my Delhi visit, I spent just as much time in Delhi as I spent in the flights.
Sivamani There is no doubt that Sivamani is the greatest drummer of India. But when we saw that he was far ahead of the best German drummer, he can be said to be a truly international drummer. On 5th November, Kannan, Rajeevi, Amritha and I attended a music programme by drummer Sivamani and another drummer from Germany by name Andreas Keller. This was organised by Max Mueller Bhawan. The programme lasted for 1 hour 30 minutes. All of us enjoyed it as the quality was very good and since the venue was Music academy, the sound was also not jarring (though initially we were scared by the speakers which were taller than a Godrej almirah).
Vishranti On 2nd October, after my mother's masyam, all of us went to Vishranti, home for destitute women at Palavakkam. Gopalan had given money for lunch that day in Mohan's name (as it was Mohan's birthday). The place is very nice and the women are very well-looked after. When we were there, Revathi Sankaran (a multi-faceted TV personality) was giving a lecture which was enjoyed by everyone. They have also brought out an excellent booklet on preparing for old age.
*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.
by Radha
