Des mein nikla hoga chaand

Sep 8 - 21st

A two week whirlwind trip to India helped heal the psyche a little bit. It also brought out parts of me that were buried under the Rochester snow.

My niece, Nivedita, has grown up nicely and is a year old now. Thankfully she has a very loving mother in Surekha now. I enjoyed her antics, her wide welcoming smile, her display of affection and her various other moods. Day 1 I saw her standing outside her cradle and rocking it - an enduring image.

Amma is her usual nervous, worrying, caring and loving self. She has been this way since I know her (and that is from a few decades ago ?;) except that in her prime she had the energy to overcome the worries. Now they rack her frail body and threaten to overpower her other facets. She enjoys having her granddaughter around and the feeling evidently, is mutual. She misses her late daughter (as I do my sister - oh, its difficult to describe how much). "A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance" ( Pete Seeger's 1950s number with lyrics from the Bible ).

I got to spend time with S'mai without the link being with us (read significant other). She leads a full life and has a lot of good friends and well-wishers. V'pacchi and she together pack a punch that puts all of us "high energy" folks to shame. We had a good time shopping and also visiting several Ganapathi's. PS: Food in festive times in India is a feast. Ergo gluttony. :)

My brother and V are a good team, each of them individualistic in their goals but collective in the execution of them ! Got to see watch their daily routine. They are hard-working, sincere, honest and high integrity people with a terrific positive attitude towards life - great examples to follow. G3, my darling niece, is a great kid and very affectionate, shy girl in her early teens. She is forever busy and happy excelling in her academics ! She devours books, watches Indian Idol and likes her school uniform perfectly ironed :)

Met J and had very little time to catch up on related world affairs and our own lives. Does growing older mean making fewer friends ? Jim continues to be his own enthusiastic self tempered by events in his life. A touch sober but bhalo. I did not get to meet any other friends at work but had a hearty conversation with Abhishek. I miss his wit and humour and the technical insights he was an endless source of. Microsoft has a great asset in him.

Everybody else - friends and relatives - were living lives. As this brilliant bumper sticker said "I'd rather be".

Work, traffic and commute to the Hosur road office form the background of this trip. Rains gave it the added splash of colour. And the endless visits to put my finances in order added the noise.

On that note I mark this post closed. Asta la vista.