EDITOR'S DIARY FOR 2001

Notices

NOTICE BOARD

The year that was

What are my impressions of 2000? It was perhaps the shortest year in my life. Though I know that all years (except leap years) have the same number of days, it seems as if 31-12-1999 was just yesterday.

Y2K bug was perhaps the biggest hoax of the last century. In sports, match-fixing was the biggest news in India. Thanks to DD , we could not see much of Olympics except for the hockey matches involving India. I felt happy at the medal of Malleswari. This along with the victory of Anand, good performance of India in the ICC Cricket Cup and the runner-up position of Mahesh-Leander in ATP were perhaps the only redeeming aspects of India's sports.

On a personal level, the year started on a bad note as I was admitted to the hospital in Jan after nearly five years to be followed by another longer visit in October. Harish started on his career in 2000. Amritha and I had a good year in Crossword as we were able to complete the ET X-word on many days. We sympathised with Aarthi who had no holidays at all. We saw 15 movies in theatres ( 5 Tamil, 3 English and 7 Hindi), of which 'Life is Beautiful' was perhaps the best. I also acquired a flat in Pune. I read a large number of books and discovered a few authors like Badacci, Erich Segal and Michael Crichton.

Naunet started with a bang in Jan and settled down to lethargy later. Aarthi and Prasad are tied for Nauratna Award for the year. I think I wrote about 10 letters. Mukund's foray into literature was a success.

Overall 2000 was a good year for me (despite the illness). I shall write in detail about the year when Prasad asks for details.

Parthasarathy
December 2000

DECEMBER 2000 / JANUARY 2001 DIARY

Though my first Newsletter drew a blank in terms of feedback from Naunet, the second was more successful. There were two prompt feedbacks ( from Jagan and Raghu). This was equal to 200 (a la Rajinikant), which has encouraged me to make one more.

First A HAPPY PONGAL to all those who cannot read the Tamil Greetings above.

Jagan was here on 31st morning and left on 2nd Afternoon. He saw the New Year Eve programmes on TV. I slept on 31st as usual (slightly late at 11.15PM) much to aarthi's annoyance. On 1st, we rented a CD of Alai Payuthe, which was OK. Jagan must now be shivering in Faridabad. Even Mumbai touched 13.8 0 C this year.

Harish has got a promotion as Senior Design Engineer with a raise in salary. Aarthi's NID Entrance Test was on 7th. I have given the paper, from which you may see it was tough. She can't say how she has done. We shall know in March. Her college prelims were over on 12th. The NAURatna that she is, she promptly wrote a letter. Will she get at least an acknowledgment? (Incidentally, Jagan and Aarthi told me that I had awarded NAURatna to Mukund, though I meant Prasad. I confirm that The NAURatna Award for 2000 is to Aarthi and Prasad).

I hope Santhanam or Kausalya or Rahul or Radhika will write about their England trip. Raghu has promised to write a travelogue on his US trip. I am sure we can expect one from Mukund on his Hawaii trip.

Amritha and I saw an English play 'Shirley Valentine'. This was a brilliant play about Shirley who finally gets the courage to break free from her routine and humdrum existence. The play used the original script by Wally which was excellent. What was remarkable was the fact that the entire 90 minutes had only one actress (Mahabhano Navroz Kotwal) and the interest did not slacken even for a minute. I believe it was a successful play in London and Broadway and was also made into a movie. We are going to a Hindi play 'Chanakya'. More of it later. We are also going to Unbreakable the day after tomorrow. More of it also later.

I think the media here went overboard about Stephen Hawking's visit. Bill Clinton and Bill Gates were the only others whose visit evoked more hype. Of course, there was also the cartoons and jokes, like
Why was he not allowed to Chowpatty?
Because it is a NO HAWKING zone.

But it is nice to know that scientists are also recognised.

Even though I don't like crowds, Mahakumbh fascinates me. Maybe I may visit the next one in 2013.

Whatever happened to Prasad?

Bye. Please resolve to write at least one letter every month.

Parthasarathy
15thJanuary 2001

JANUARY 2001 DIARY

January has been an active month for us. We saw three plays, one film and attended a concert so far. I have already written about Shirley Valentine. The other two were Chanakya and Adrak ke Panje (both in Hindi). Chanakya had some excellent acting but was in chaste Hindi. Adrak ke Panje is in Guinness book as the longest running drama and has completed over 10000 shows from 1965. But we just could not understand why this was a hit.It was amateurish and to add to the problem the main actor's voice had turned hoarse. The film was 'Unbreakable'. We liked it. Though directorially this film is better I liked Sixth Sense more. The concert was by L.Shankar with Zakir Hussain on Tabla and Selvaganesh (son of Vinayak Ram) on Khanjira. The performance was top-class. The audience was also good. For a change, people had put off their mobiles. In many dramas, mobile-owners do not put off their phones and become a nuisance.

Finally Stephen Hawking is off the front pages. But as Aarthi wrote, his book was a sell-out in the Strand book fair.Sharad Pawar defeated Wadekar for the Presidentship of Mumbai Cricket Association. Azhar has finally gone on the offensive and has criticised (perhaps rightly) the Mumbai players.

Australia and S.A. continue to defeat WI and Sri Lanka ( What's New?)

Will Anand win? I doubt, but let's hope he does. My bet for Australian Open is on Kafelnikov.

Parthasarathy
February 2001

APRIL 2002 DIARY (from 4th April)

After 3rd April, when Hema left for Ussoor. we (Amritha & I) left Jaya Akka (my mother-in-law ) in T.Nagar and stayed in ICF Guest House. I also showed Amritha the house that I have been allotted. It is a big, but old (bhoot?) bungalow. There is also a newer house that may be available after July. But I was keen on continuing here, while Amritha felt the newer house would be easier to maintain. Aarthi, who was given the casting vote, declared ,' How can Amma not like this old house? The new house is so boring.' So hopefully we would live in a big bungalow till I retire in 2006, after which we will go to a small flat.
The big news for relatives was that Kausalya received the prestigious Altrusan Award, along with a well-known doctor.
Amritha and I left for Mumbai on 12th. I returned within a couple of days. Later I went to Bangalore on 27th to see Aarthi's works submitted for jury assessment. After seeing the output of all the students, I can only envy the students of Srishti. Weather-wise, Bangalore was the worst of the three cities, viz. Chennai, Bangalore and Mumbai, with Mumbai being the best.
I was able to finish three novels in English and two in Tamil, the best of which was 'Acts of faith' by Erich Segal with 'The Testament' by John Grisham coming a close second.
Cricket has again become the national obsession after the absorbing second Test between India and Windies. Of course, the third Test was a dampener. Is it the resurgence of Windies or is it the familiar tale of India losing abroad? Time will tell.

Parthasarathy
May 2002

MY DIARY FOR MAY 2002 (upto June 4th)
One feels happy to occupy a big house. But it becomes a very big hassle when you are transferred. The law for all Government (particularly Railway ) officers is 'Luggage expands to fill the space available.' In 1973, Amritha and I started with things which could be transported in a jeep. Now we have luggage that needs more than three 5-tonne trucks. So May 2002 was a hectic month for Amritha and me.
Aarthi came with me from Bangalore to Chennai on 30th April and we left for Mumbai after spending a couple of days here. I came back in a couple of days. I had brought 11 cartons and a statue of Anjaneya (bought by us in Ujjain) with me in the two trips I made to Mumbai before the final shifting. One of my colleagues thought that was 25% of my total luggage and was amazed when I told him it was only 1% of my luggage.
After a week in Chennai, I left for Mumbai on 15th May. The period frrom 16th to 22nd was very hectic, with a host of people performing different functions in the house, which looked like a cyclone-affected area. Times like these, one feels happy to have joined the Railways, as our job was mainly supervising and ensuring that things are done in an orderly fashion (of course you feel the tension of a transfer) .Hats off to Amritha, who was making tea for all workers every day as well as making all meals till lunch on 22nd . In between, we visited my cousin as well as some of my colleagues for lunch/dinner.On 22nd, we loaded the major luggage in the wagon. We still had about 50 pieces with us (TV, Music system, PC, jewels, silverware, clothes and 10 pieces of Harish). We left by a special carriage by Chennai Express on 22nd, while our kit-wagon was attached by Mail on the same day. Harish accompanied us upto Pune.The journey was uncomfortably hot between Guntakal and Renigunta, but the carriage was ideal for carrying all the luggage.
We spent two nights in the Guest House, adjacent to our house. The house is excellent, though there were initial problems.It has a living room, dining room, a smaller hall and two bed-rooms (with attached bath) on the ground floor with two bed-rooms (with attached bath) on the first floor. The room selected by Aarthi (and guest-room) is the biggest that I have occupied so far at 38feetX22 feet. There is also a big garden area, with a number of trees and enough space to play shuttle.The flip side is that pigs (yes, PIGS) roam around freely in the garden. Our luggage came on 24th and was unloaded the same day, though unpacking is still not over. For the quantity of luggage, the damage was minimal (Amritha felt sorry that the fish-tank broke). Again hats off to Amritha, who started making all meals from breakfast of 24th.
We were reasonably settled when Hema and my mother-in-law came on 28th, after vacating their flat at Tiruvanmiyur . Raghu also came on 28th. So we decided to host our first-ever function with all (almost all) close relatives on 1st June. Since we wanted him to be here, Harish came on two days' leave- by air on 1st and left by train on 4th.
The get-together was good. The catering was OK. We had organised a few games including Housie & Quiz and everybody enjoyed them. My brother brought my mother from the hospital to our house on 1st . Raghu left on 3rd, Hema and Harish on 4th. Only from 5th or 6th (after most problems in the house are over), I feel comfortable in Chennai and am not thinking about Mumbai. But Aarthi is still unhappy about leaving Mumbai.
We have not been able to see much of world cup football due to the difficult attitude of cable operators.But Senegal seems to be a revelation so far. Cricket was interesting in WI and let's hope India does well in England.
I found time to read two novels- one by Alister McLean and another by Sue Grafton ( famous for all her alphabet novels).
As usual, I am asking all of you to reply, though Prasad and Raghu are the only regular correspondents.
anbudan,
Parthasarathy
12th June 2002

MY DIARY FOR JULY 2001

Hello. This Newsletter has been made after two months, though Amritha and I wrote a number of letters during this period. A lot of things have happened in the meanwhile. Just to refresh everyone's memory Aarthi secured 84% overall and 93% in PCM in her Board exam. And we were one of the very few parents in Mumbai not going to any college for her admission. She had already got admission to Srishti in Bangalore. Very few know at 16 what they want and fewer still get to do it. So we are happy for Aarthi. But we do miss her a lot. She is very busy with her course, though enjoying it thoroughly. She uses the word 'amazing' often to describe the teaching methods in Srishti. We talk to her every Thursday.

Before Aarthi left for Bangalore, she assisted me in making a Memorial Website for Deepu and Sriram. Aarthi attended to the graphics, while I took care of HTML and Javascript. I am obliged to Prasad, Rahul and Shoba for valuable information and feedback. I request all those who have not visited the site to do so at www.oocities.org/deepusriram and give me feedback.

Arun ( my niece, Urmila's son) did very well in the Entrance Test to the new BSc(IT) course of Mumbai University, securing 180th rank out of 10,000. But the counselling for that course will start only after Engg. admissions. By the time classes start in Mumbai, Aarthi may finish her first semester.

This seems to be the foreign travel season for our relatives. Kannan and Rajeevi are in USA (or Australia), Raghu is in China and Indonesia ( which is what we learnt from his autoreply to our mail), Ramesh is in States, Rahul is in Chennai and Jagan must have returned from USA.

The media was full of Musharraf and Agra. Among the thousands of statements, the one I liked was by George Fernandez. When asked why Agra was chosen for the summit, he replied with a straight face 'Agra is a place where people like to hold hands.'

One more outside tour for India with no win. In Sri Lanka, they may avoid being branded as the team that wins the league matches and loses the title. I think they will lose in the league stage itself ( This was written before India's batting started against New Zwaland.

As usual, I am reminding you to write at least once in 15 days to the entire group and not only to me.

Parthasarathy
August 2001

MY DIARY FOR AUGUST 2001
August saw the sad demise of my uncle Shri Chakrapani (Adyar Kannan's father.) I have very fond memories about him. He was the first of our close relatives to buy a scooter. My first scooter ride was with him and the thrill I got from it was not equalled even by my first plane ride . When he was manager of Krishna Talkies, all of us have gone there to see films free. I was elated when he always made sure that we got cool drinks during the interval. He was a considerate person and I have never seen him raise his voice. He enjoyed life, which was evident from all his actions. Whenever he read the Newspaper, we children used to stand around him, as he would read loudly with his own comments added, which were always interesting. It is a great pity that he had to suffer a lot towards the end. May his soul rest in peace.

August is perhaps the noisiest month in Mumbai and also has the maximum holidays. It started with Raksha Bandhan followed by Janmashtami, Independence Day and finally the big one, viz., Ganesh Chaturthi with Parsi New Year thrown in. As I write this, the noise level is very high, today (1st September) being the immersion day. Though our sleep is affected by all the noise, Ganapati has an innate charm and it is good to see people happy rather than being sad or destructive.

I also travelled more than usual, with a day in Delhi, a day in Vadodara, two days in Bangalore, two days in Ussoor and two days in train. Amritha wrote a detailed letter in Tamil to her mother on our Bangalore and Ussoor trip. (Click here to read the letter)Aarthi had 5 days holidays. Since we were keen to see her and since the time was not sufficient for her to visit Mumbai, Amritha and I decided to go to her. A detailed travelogue in Tamil by Amritha is available in the Tamil section. So I don't intend to write much, except saying that Aarthi is enjoying her course. She has done more painting, drawing and writing in 45 days than what I did in my first two years in Engineering College. She has obvious talent in writing and the faculty in Srishti are excellent at encouraging it as we could see from the comments on the margins on her output (Madhu said ,' ippadi encourage panni irundha, namba kooda engeyo poyirppom.') I wish Srishti was in existence in the 60s and I wish I had been a student there. I can also assure all of you that Hema's place is also worth-visiting, which is why we are planning to go there in October also.

August was a good month for Indian chess with another GM, but bad for all other sports like cricket, football, weightlifting, hockey and tennis. Why are Paes-Bhupathy emulating the cricket team in inconsistency? Coming back to cricket, why do our players seem to lack the basic skills despite being talented? Yet I am in favour of retaining all the players, even after Sachin, Laxman, Srinath and Kumble return.I was happy that England won a Test. England-India match in October may be evenly matched ( but not in India, perhaps).

We are happy that another edition of Mastermind India has started on BBC. I wish all those who can see it watch it. It has two rounds of intense quizzing of each participant for two minutes. The first round is the specialised round where the participant can choose any subject and the second round is the GK round. The standard of quizzing is top-class, though some of the subjects chosen by the participants are esoteric.

We saw Lagaan in August. It is a well-made movie and was able to sustain our interest despite its length. For a cricket fan, which all of us are, it was very entertaining and had good acting, good music and good photography.

Amritha and I attended a Carnatic Music concert in NCPA where we are members. It was a vocal recital by Bombay Jayashree. Though I like only instrumental music in Carnatic/Hindustani, we liked the concert. It was short and sweet ( one and a half hours) with just six songs. Her voice and modulation were both very good.

I read three novels in August- two by Lawrence Sanders and 'Abduction' by Robin Cook.All the three were good.The last is a science fiction talking about an undersea world and cloning and was very interesting.

Tailpiece

I have believed in Artificial Intelligence as early as 1987, when we were in Vadodara. I made the mistake of telling Amritha in front of the frige that I was likely to receive the Pay Commission arrears the following week. On hearing this, the frige compressor conked off. I got confirmation of this phenomenon in August 2001. Despite being bitten once, I made the mistake of discussing some income from arbitration cases in the bedroom as well as in the living room. On hearing this, my PC as well as TV both fell sick, making me a party to unanticipated expenditure from out of the unanticipated income. So am I wrong in believing in AI?

Parthasarathy
September 2001

MY DIARY FOR SEPTEMBER 2001
I have moved to Central Railway (from Churchgate to CST) on a lateral promotion. It is a promotion since I move up by one level in the hierarchy and will have more PPCs attached to me than before (A PPC for the unfamiliar is Peeche Peeche Chalnewala). It is lateral since my pay remains the same.

11th September will perhaps be remembered for a long, long time. I was one of the first to watch the whole sequence and I was immediately reminded of the scenes in Calcutta six years ago when my brother and his family died in the building collapse. But WTC was 1000 times more tragic and frightening. This tragedy has touched everybody in the world in some way or the other. The lay-offs everywhere, including in India, are terrible. The collapse of SwissAir is tragic. It may take quite a while for USA and all others to recover.

I travelled a lot in September, with three days in Jaipur ( along with Amritha and Harish), two days in Vadodara and two days in Ujjain and Indore (with Amritha). A detailed travelogue in Tamil by Amritha on our Jaipur trip is available in Tamil(Click here to read the Tamil travelogue) So I don't intend to write much, except saying that the ethnic village near Jaipur called Choki Dani is authentic and excellent. Ujjain is a pilgrim town (like Kanchipuram) with a lot of temples. Indore is the biggest city in MP and is very good. We visited two Jyotirling temples - Mahakaleshwar in Ujjain and Onkareshwar, which is 80 kms from Ujjain. The latter is on the banks of Narmada. The visit to Vadodara was to attend a seminar on restructuring of Railways, in which the Minister and all members of the Railway Board participated.

Despite a lot of travels, I could read only one novel (by Lawrence Sanders) in September.

Tailpiece
There are two views about jokes on tragic events. One is that people should refrain from creating any jokes on them, while the other feels that there is no holy cow for humour. I am a middle-of-the roader in that I do not like jokes about personal tragedies, though I am not against jokes on events like hijacking, accidents etc. This explanation is to pre-empt any criticism on the joke that I am reproducing below.

Ad line for UAL

Why wait at air ports? We fly you straight to your work place.

Parthasarathy
October 2001

MY DIARY FOR OCTOBER 2001

What happens to parents of many small families happened to Amritha and me in October. We live alone - thankfully only on week-days. Harish left on transfer to Pune 0n 15th October. His first and second week-ends were with us in Bangalore and Chennai.

Amritha and I reached Bangalore on 20th in time to see Aarthi's (and her coursemates') work during the first semester. They were required to exhibit some of their works and present them for Jury assessment. We were amazed by the quality of work and the presentation.

Harish joined us on 21st. On that day, we had lunch in Madhu's place and then visited four places in Bangalore. Each of them was very good in a different way. First, we went to Chitrakala Parishad, which has a couple of art exhibitions all the time. When we went, an exhibition by an artist called Subramanian was excellent. We then went to the Planetarium for the English show, which was also very good. Our next call was to ISKCON temple. It is a great material (and not spiritual) experience. A big supermarket functions inside the huge and impressive temple complex ( perhaps the biggest ISKCON temple in the world and maybe the only temple with fibreglass facade. You can see some photos in the photo section). One can eat excellent snacks of all types including Pizza, Bonda etc. (quaintly called 'Govinda Prasadam') at very reasonable rates. We thought that ice-cream was missing, when to our amusement, we sighted a 'Govinda delight Ice-cream Parlour'. As Harish remarked, we had never before eaten so much in any temple. Our last place of visit was the Musical Fountain. This was also a terrific experience.

We left for Ussoor the next morning. We were happy to meet Chandra there. However, Our visit coincided with load shedding for a long time. So Harish was disappointed and except for playing cards in the candle-light, we could not go anywhere.

We reached Chennai on Tuesday (23rd) evening. We had just enough time to visit all the relatives (Amritha felt time was never enough with Neha) and attend Shoba's engagement function. We also went to Spencer Plaza which is as good as any mall in the world. Welcome additions to Chennai and Bangalore are the 'Call Taxis', which are reasonable (especially for four persons) and free us from facing the notorious auto drivers of Chennai.

The function was celebrated well. We and Chandra came from outside Chennai, though Madhu and family could not, due to his travel agent's mistake. The eats were very good and so was the bag containing the 'thengai'.

Despite a lot of travel or maybe because of it, I could read only two novels- both by Alister MacLean - Floodgate and Breakheart Pass.

I have not talked about crossword for a long time, since I found that very few shared my passion. I have now raised the topic just to mention that I won a prize in October by solving the Jumbo crossword ( Full page) in 'Afternoon Despatch & Courier', a daily newspaper published from Mumbai. I'll get a pair of trousers, supposedly worth Rs. 850/-.

Parthasarathy
November 2001

MY DIARY FOR NOVEMBER 2001

The big news in November for all Indians was the 'punishment' to Sachin and others. My view was that Indians, particularly Dalmia, overeacted. And ignorance of laws by anybody, including Sachin, is never accepted by any court as an excuse. Having said that, I'd also say that I have always been opposed to the match-referee concept as it exists. So something good may come out of the whole episode. With or without the episode and with or without Sehwag, we would have lost, which is what we did.But we will win at home against England and all will be forgotten. Raghu wrote that without even wanting to do so, he returns to cricket like Vikram and Vethal. I think that is true of many of us. And we had cricket from early morning (Aus-NZ), morning (WI-SL) and night (SA-India). Lara played brilliantly, but in vain. Our obsession with cricket overshadowed world Chess tournament. Incidentally, end of 2001 seems to be bad for Ausralia, who lost in football and tennis and almost lost in cricket.

Aarthi had a nice time here for three weeks. She did write a letter, but I do not know whether anybody noticed. I am giving some excerpts from her letter.

'Yes, Bangalore is fine. Amazing, in fact. Finally, I can say I'm getting an education instead of passing certificates and marks. A little about the system- it's totally American inspired- the credit system, Grade Point Average etc. Also, things like calling teachers by first name, stress on research, individual atttention (there are only 24 students in my batch), etc. We don't study only drawing and painting as art and design (We hardly study) We have weird topics like philosophy (Theories of art), psychology(Perception, seeing, understanding), History(Art through the ages), even Maths (Geometry in constuction drawing and Architecture) popping up. Besides that we have Creative writing, 3-d work (Furniture and Clay work).

So, basically when all my batchmates, who have taken engineering (out of 8 friends, 6 have taken engineering!) , I'm having the time of my life! Of course, foundation is the only year you get to try out everything, so we were advised to make the best of it, by our seniors. Otherwise, if you choose something you don't want to do, and realise it later...your life's a mess! The way they teach is amazing, too. On the first day, they made is do things like- painting with vegetables, blindfolded. Or painting with paints, but no brushes- so we used broomsticks, sponges, toothbrushes,etc. And linked to this is always some observation. For example. When we were doing perspective drawing, we were told that when we stand at arm's length from a mirror, we normally tend to take the size of the head in the mirror as the actual. But actually, it's only half the actual size of our head. We actually did it ourselves. Then we had a discussion on the known, and the seen. And how when you know, or rather, you think you know, you can't see! I'm in Bombay now, on vacation. I'm having fun here too- Eating and sleeping is a lot of fun! I also want to add that, in Bangalore all I get the time for is to read mails. That's all I have the patience for, rather, because the cybercafes there have really bad connections. But I'll try to drop at least a line from there now.

Love,
Aarthi.
PS- Please reply to this one!
PPS- Once upon a time, there used to be a lot of group mails.

Aarthi did some shopping. She never bothered about Khadi, when I was with KVIC. But this time, she bought a lot of khadi kurtas. Deepavali (14th, which coincided with children's Day) here has always been without crackers- who will go down from 12th floor merely to burst crackers?Yet, Harish and Srivatsan went down for the mandatory 'pattasu'. But all the rest, viz., sweets, legiyam, new clothes, idli etc. were there. While Amritha and I got up by 5.00AM, others got up quite late.

Aarthi was to join back before 19th. Amritha and I decided to leave her in Bangalore. So we, along with Aarthi, left on 16th on our fifth trip to Bangalore for the year.We reached Bangalore on 17th, where we met Rukku and Mr. Varadachary. The same night, we left for Chennai, where we spent two days.We still found time to visit all the relatives (Amritha again felt time was never enough with Neha. I used to feel that films' depiction of babies talking beyond their age was wrong. But after hearing Neha's talk, I have to revise that view). We were sad to see my mother in hospital.

Santhanam visited us on 28th when he had come for a conference in RBI and could only spend the same amount of time that we did with him in Chennai.

Despite a lot of official and personal travel , I could only read two books - a 600-page novel of Robert Ludlum (Holcraft Covenant) as well as another by Jack Higgins (Angel of Fire).

Tailpiece1 Urmila's son, Naren says that the carrier of Anthrax disease is a letter and not a virus. He is right.

Tailpiece 2

Can you imagine working for an organisation, which has 29 accused of spousal abuse, 7 arrested for fraud, 19 accused of writing bad checks, 117 bankrupted at least twice, 3 arrested for assault, 71 refused credit card due to bad credit, 14 arrested on drug-related charges, 8 arrested for shoplifting, 21 current defendants in lawsuits and 84 stopped for drunken driving in a single year?

Can you guess which organization this is?

Give up?
It's the Indian Parliament which makes hundreds of new laws designed to keep the rest of us in line.

Parthasarathy
December 2001

MY DIARY FOR DECEMBER 2001

December was a busy month for us. The big news was, of course, the stroke suffered by my father-in-law on 6th. Amritha reached Chennai on 13th and could be of some assistance to her parents. Raghu, Vidya and Nitya also reached Chennai on 13th. They went to Aarthi's place in Bangalore. Aarthi reached Chennai (alone) on 24th and I on 28th. With Hema also commuting ofen to Chennai, it was a family gathering of sorts. We saw K3G in Chennai, which was OK. Aarthi and Vidya were inseparable for nearly two weeks. We welcomed 2002 with a moonlight dinner in Marina beach on 1st ( excellent dinner-courtesey Radha & Urmila). We visited my mother in VHS hospital and my father-in-law in GH on alternate days. We returned to Mumbai on 6th after dropping Aarthi in Bangalore ( I found that we were in Bangalore or Tamil Nadu in 9 months out of 12 in 2001).

We had been to Baroda for a day on 1st to attend a wedding. We also went to Regal for 'Monsoon wedding', which I found OK, but Amritha found it good. I also went to Delhi and Bhusawal for a day each. I did not 'ensoy' Amritha's absence. I didn't have to try out cooking thanks to Gopal and Harish came for the weekends. Yet the house wasn't the same without Amritha.

I found time to read three novels - another big novel of Robert Ludlum (The Sigma Protocol) and two others (Prasad is right. I can't recall the names of both. I must start my diary).

Parthasarathy
31st December 2001