Tamil New year - a delayed photo op

My mom got me a few shirts and pants to wear for this years occasions on my last India trip in December. This year we were not exactly in celebratory mood for Tamil New Year two weeks ago. 

We had just finished 30 days under lockdown and were at the stage where everyone was ready to kill each other within the house. The good news is we are all doing okay and are all healthy. 

I have been pushing the family to come for a photoshoot to get a family picture and tonight they obliged.. it was not possible to make everyone dress up as some folks expect me to be happy for them even showing up for the picture. 

We did have some good eats on April 14th to celebrate but we were in stay-at-home clothing.

Here is last years photo..

and this years photo..

and another photo to remember this time and this year..

Next year Jr. will be in college and given Tamil New Year falls on April 14th, chances are she will not be visiting.. it might be a good  8 years before we see the family in one place for this. . . which is why I was pushing for these pictures in the first place!

This year started in quarantine and has set the bar very low for any year in our lifetime. We sincerely hope that things will get better and we get back to at least 50% of our routines.

Given my grumpiness and the actual day being spent in back to back zoom meetings and calls...

I wish you all a better year! 

Hope by next April we are all back to normal! 

Recreating an old photo

It was with extreme pleading that I managed to get the kids to co-operate for a photo recreation effort..

This was a photo taken in late 2006 or early 2007.. Used it as my Facebook Profile when joining in 2007. It has remained my profile photo since..

Today after many many years, the kids agreed to a retake. My photographer did her best but sometimes they are slightly out of focus. She was going to beg the kids for another take, but it is what it is..

if it was meant to be, it would have come out as intended..

Maybe in another 10 years we can try this again and that time I will have a better shot at this..

Proud of my dollies for agreeing to this.. they were sportive enough!

I am so not ready for this

Today my little girl walked into the house wearing long earings.. something I ahve not seen her wear before. So asked her for a portrait picture and she was okay.

Think she sees me as a hopeless person who is coming to terms with the fact that she will be going to college soon. Understanding facts and accepting them are two different things, even if it means you have gone through this experiene before on the other side. It is not much different from being a college kid who drove around everywhere on a bicycle, wishing the car drivers were more careful and when you get behind the wheel, wishing the cyclists were more careful.. or being an engineer wishing your manager grasped what your thought process was and suddenly managing a large group and wishing the engineers knew the larger constraints.. every story has a side.. and this time I want to go find that episode of Barney called Happy Mad Silly Sad.. to cheer myself up. 

Jr. was a bigtime Barney fan. However she was not the one who introduced me to Barney.. it was my college senior Vish's daughter Harita who would make me watch Barney with her everytime I visited their apartment. Then Barney was forgotten only to be played three times a day .. because Barney was the key to open Jr.'s mouth to feed her! Eventually he was replaced by the Metti Oli title song which I recorded on a VHS cassette and had to play it 5 times to finish dinner. We could not watch it past the 5th time or you would have seen headlines like "sunnyvale parents in murder suicide after being forced to watch tamil soap opera title song 1000 times a month"..  Thankfully we are past all that.. or are we?! 

We digress as usual. Now another digress about the digress..

Yours truly has been on a wait list to attend a Vipasana medidation course. It is not easy to get into this one. It was highly recommended by my yoga teacher friends. They are eagerly awaiting to see if this will help me. . It is a course where you are not allowed to speak or make eye contact with people.. My family has already started a pool of sorts on which day of the course, they will be kicking me out and accepting that their practice has failed. Readers of the blog already know how highly my family regards my ability to go on about random topics.. or my general aimlessness when it comes to conversation..

Where were we?  Jr., Earings, College, Portrait, College, Barney, rambling.. okay.. back to portraits.

Jr. was just a few months old. She was able to hold her head. We had just started taking her out to public places. Day 40 we took her to Livermore temple. Then we went for a drive along route 1. That following winter was cold. So we spent time at Great mall.. walking the entire mall with her in a stroller.. and we came across this portrait setup in the middle of the mall. We went for it. They were hesitant about a child this small.. but we were literally holding her from behind (but the hand was covered with a cloth). It was like a magic trick. She was looking at mom and grandma and smiling.. The original hangs on a frame in my office.. this is a photo of the photo.. 

Even today sometimes that is the Jr. I see.. always smiling..  and just like that she is not a kid anymore! 

Went searching for some old photos and realized that the hard drive on which they were stored is corrupted. Have to find a way to back them up more reliably. Those WD passport drives are probably guaranteed for 10 years.. time flies! 

These screensavers are going to make things more difficult, as the kids go to college. 

Right now it is not just the kids growing up.. I am growing up as well. . .