Today was better than yesterday … 😀 thank fully ..

It was the folks 46th wedding anniversary. At times i look at them kootchi cooing like teenagers, at others they scrap like newly weds. there are some nice black and white pics from a long time ago – i need to trace them, scan them and store them ..

My mother -a Bombay girl-  was 21 and my dad was 23 when they got married. My mother had a bachelors in Political Science and then, like all good girls from a certain background, went to ‘study’ home science at Nirmalaniketan. As dad puts it, she knew how to bake a cake and make salad and arrange flowers in a vase,  but she didn’t know how to make sambhar…He taught her how to cook.

Dad came from Vishakapatnam, where his family had settled. My grandfather, a student of C.V.Raman,  was the Principle Principal of the Andhra University. Dad studied pharmacy. My grandfather was a renowned geologist – and didn’t want my father studying geology because he didn’t want to be accused of nepotism. On my grandfather’s death in 1962 – my father moved to Mumbai. He met my mom – they were distant relatives – and the rest is history.

In the late 1960’s they had a chance to go to the USA and settle there. Both said no. They wanted their children to be brought up in India. More importantly they believed they had something to contribute.  Monetarily we would have been better off had they moved there.

I can’t remember a single fight about money or movies not gone to or holidays not had. But i do remember loud exchange of ideas (they called it that – i would call it a fight) on politics and economics and the state of the nation. There was never this issue of “your family, my family” it was always ‘our’ family. Both my grandmothers used to stay with us – often at the same time – for extended periods. They got on famously…. it was a good life … there were issues – but then, whose life doesn’t have issues ?

taken 4 years ago – around the time of their 42nd wedding anniversary.

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Oh and my column came out today – decent response. had a good ‘conversation’ on google+ about it.

Began reading Madhuri Banerjee’s “Losing my virginity and other stupid ideas” – good light read – just the kind of stuff the mind needs after wading through data on female foeticide and the Press Council of India’s suppressed report on the Paid News Phenomenon in India. The book is unpretentious, well written, funny, real and made me laugh (declaration: madhuri and i have worked together in the distant past. I like her. she is a fun person – but if I didn’t like her book, i wouldn’t have said anything) . so go read …

now the thing is to finish the book. too many half read books in my life… i just misplace them all over the house and office. and by the time i find them, i lose the thread of where I was and start a new one … stuff i am trying to break out of in the 30 day project

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me playing with the camera at a signal, and then with photoshop to try and create a poster feel … question – would i have this on the wall of my study ???

have gotten very fond of the side view mirror shot – but given the number of hours in a week driving, it is a view that i am very used to.
i don’t know why i like this picture but i do …

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a week passes by very fast when you are doing things. Is my inertia gone … No. i lapse. and lapse. and lapse.. but i pull my self out every time. it is an effort. because the status quo is comfortable.