Last week, I read a quotation by Aldous Huxley, "Every man's memory is his private literature." This Newsletter was begun to preserve my private memories vis-a-vis the family and I am now happy to know that it may be 'literature'. I am sure that Prasad's series of articles of the recollection of his memories (Wistful for a Vespa; Bravado; Bookmarking memory with songs etc.) can be categorised as literature. Prasad's piece on songs last month was superb and has inspired me to write a similar piece this month on the songs that have stuck in my memory for some reason or the other.

My apology to Radha, who said ,'How can you change me to Chitra?'. The onlooker along with Raghu in Pushpa's wedding photo is Radha and not Chitra.

Things are looking up, both on contributions and feedback. Sudarshan was the first relative to send his contribution for the month. And his efforts have been appreciated by everybody. Prasad has written a nice piece on a person he met in Bhutan. I am happy that my letter to the others to contribute has evoked a response from Nitya, who has written four nice poems and Rahul, who has contributed 'Random thoughts' written during his stay in Chennai. Others may take note and start writing. You have nothing to lose except your inhibitions.

Coming to feedback, Raghu and Prasad, as always, gave detailed feedback, Harish and Shoba also wrote. And now that we are in Chennai, we also get some feedback on phone.

Prasad, the notice board is not an applet, it is just a Javascript routine. I have reduced the speed (which was also pointed out by Radha and Shoba).Aarthi wanted the ban on right-click to be removed (which I had put to protect my signature) and so it goes. All the changes in the format suggested by Prasad have been done (though it required some more 'html' learning) . You can see that this editor is very responsive!

During my surfing sessions on the net, I keep saving anything that interests or impresses me. When I was going through the files, I found two interesting pieces - one on 'Mother & Father' and the other on 'The postulates for the 21st century'. I have reproduced both and I'd like the younger lot to react to the piece on 21st Century, as they are going to spend more time in this century.
The first feature, as usual, are the old photos.

MEMORIES ARE	MADE OF THESE
	It will be one year in August since the passing away of my athimber (Shri Chakrapani, who was Adyar Kannan's father). So I have reproduced a photo of my athai and athimber.
	The second photo was in 1974 when Amritha and I visited Aurangabad. This is in front of 'bibi-ka-maqbara' which is also known as duplicate Taj.

MY DIARY FOR JULY 2002
Dirubhai Ambani's death, Kalam's election , Kapil Dev's selection by Wisden as Indian cricketer of the century and Michael Schumacher's winning the Formula-I world championship for 2002 with six races still to go were some important news of July. For us, more important was the fact that Jaya Akka's potassium level is higher than the norm. She is unhappy that she has been forbidden to eat any fruits and many vegetables. And she has to drink two litres of water every day. I read in the net about this condition, which is called 'hyperkalemia'. I hope her count of Potassium comes below 4.5 (3 to 4.5 is the norm) from about 6 at present.

Last month, I said that Amritha and I were fully settled. I realised later that we had not opened more than 10 cartons, mostly containing books. I got a book-case made and all the cartons have now been opened. So now I can claim we are settled. We had problems on a number of days with the day-time ayah for my mother not turning up. We had to fix two new ayahs in quick succession. But the present one appears to be good. Since my mother suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, she is totally dependent on others for sitting, toilet, bathing, feeding etc. and hence we are dependent on the ayahs.

The first week of July saw me fulfilling a long-pending desire. For more than an year, I wanted to own a domain, but was postponing it since I thought it was an unnecessary expenditure. Finally, I booked a domain, which is www.sparthasarathy.net Right now, I have only provided links to all my sites. But I have set a target of 31st December to revamp my home page and host it on this domain.

We saw 'Tenkasipattinam' in theatre after reading the good reviews and were disappointed. It was so-so. We also saw 'Panchathanthiram' on CD. It looked a masala of all Kamal's past comedies and was OK- a 'see and forget' film.

On 10th, we attended my father's Shrardh in the same place (in Triplicane) where Athimber's 'maasyam' was performed. I visited Mumbai for three days on 11th, 12th and 13th. Earlier, whenever the flight (or train) approached Mumbai, I used to have a feeling of anticipation- of going home. Though I was happy to visit Mumbai, that feeling was missing, which shows that home is where the heart (i.e., Amritha) is. Harish came to Mumbai on Friday (12th) night. We both saw India's historic win in the Rest House at Churchgate. Cricket mania has crossed to cricket euphoria. 'India do a Lagaan at Lords': 'Lagaan victory for India' were some of the headlines after India's famous victory on 13th July. Some even started comparing this win to 1983 World Cup Finals. Well, it was a great win and a fine performance by Kaif and Yuvraj. But England of 2002 is definitely not equal to West Indies of 1983,while the Indian team of 2002 is perhaps more talented. And restricting a great team to 140 is far superior to chasing 326 against a mediocre attack.So let's just say it was a great win and augurs well for next year's World Cup, though as Raghu says our bowlers may not be upto the task in South africa (In fact, these bowlers allowed England to score 325 runs).

July was a quiet month for us, except that we both won some money in Housie on Club Day.I read a lot of English (3 weeklies, 3 fortnightlies and 1 monthly) and Tamil magazines ( 5 weeklies, 2 fortnightlies and 2 monthlies), apart from reading and solving Crosswords in three Newspapers. Though we do not watch any serials, we see a lot of old Tamil songs after coming to Chennai. Our day starts early (5.15 AM) with exercise routine (20 minutes of walking, 12 minutes of cycling and 12 minutes of stationary jogging for me and walking for Amritha) in the mornings. And Amritha and I play shuttle for more than half an hour every evening. The PC is always there, if I still find time hanging heavily. So no novels in July also though I have started re-reading an old PGWodehouse.

anbudan,

1st August 2002