|
|
MY DIARY FOR JANUARY 2003 (from 5th Jan. to 2nd Feb.)
Another busy month for us with a lot of happenings. The biggest news for the family was Kannan's(Adyar)   by-pass surgery on 30th. The operation was a success and his recovery is quite fast. He has been moved to the room on 1st and has also been allowed to walk a little. Amritha, Hema (whom we picked up from the bus-stand) and I called on him on 1st. He is quite cheerful and keen to talk (though we tried to control ourselves). The prospect of strict diet control seems to put him off, but that is something to which he has to get used. The hospital (Madras Medical Mission Hospital) is excellent and is on par with the best abroad. Naunet Newsletter wishes Kannan a speedy recovery.
The first fortnight was a busy one as Aarthi left on 4th and we spent the second week of January visiting the dentist for Amritha's bleeding gum-treatment in Adyar next to Adyar Bakery. Our regular routine of walk and shuttle was suspended for more than 10 days as Amritha hurt her left leg while playing shuttle. Later she bumped into the edge of the wall and got hurt in the same place which was paining a lot. Added to this, Gopal left for his hometown to celebrate Pongal.
I think I have visited more temples in January than in the last one year. On the evening of 13th (Vaikunta Ekadasi), we visited two temples in Koyambedu and Mugappair (near the hospital where Kannan is admitted), both of which are nice. On 24th, which was our 30th Wedding Anniversary, I surprised Amritha by taking her to Kanchipuram and Ussoor, from where Hema accompanied us to Chennai. In that trip, we visited 7 temples. On 24th and 25th, Rukku was kind enough to stay here to take care of my mother and mother-in-law. On our return, all four of us played mail.
 On 17th, we went to Naradha Gana Sabha for the music concert of Aruna Sairam. She has a majestic voice and sings very well. The programme lasted for 2 1/4 hours. We thoroughly enjoyed the concert. She sang a number of songs including a Meera bhajan and a Ganapathi bappa moria song. She sang with such enthusiasm that everybody started clapping to the tune.
I don't think I'd like to change anything if I am to go thro' my life again. Perhaps the only aspect which I may change is to develop appreciation and knowledge of classical music. I am trying to correct this and plan to learn more of Karnatic music from the Net. In my quest I came across an excellent site, which I have recommended as this month's link.
Jaya Akka (my mother-in-law) came here from Santhanam's house on 10th. She is fine. The swelling on her legs which was causing concern has come down. She is getting up 3,4 times in the night as a result of which she doesn’t sleep well and is able to get up only after 7.00. Otherwise, she is fine and her food intake is normal. She walks with the help of the walker in the garden also. Her K level, though higher than normal, is under control. Madhu’s wife Geetha was declared the best faculty in India for teaching CA and ICWA. This is a big honour and the Newsletter congratulates her. My sister-in-law Vijaya has left for Jakartha on 14th. We had her as well as a lot of other visitors.
We saw a good Paattu manram (patti manram with songs) conducted by Leoni (who is a talented and humourous compere in Tamil) on Pongal day. On our way to Kanchi, we heard a cassette of another show by him which was also very humourous. On 26th, Amritha and I attended Guindy 67 batch (my batch) annual meeting. It was a good get together with 40 families(some with children and even grandchildren) . We played a game of housie in which I shared the full house with another person. We had a good dinner as well as a good gift!
On the 29th, we saw Anbe Sivam, a nice film with excellent action by Kamal and Madhavan. Unfortunately the film has only got a lukewarm response and the hall was just half full for the 3.00 PM show that we saw. The crowd for the evening show was also not much.
Today (2nd Feb.), Aarthi came home with six of her class-mates. They were all on their way from Bangalore to Howrah. They came by Mail at 5.30 AM and were taking the connecting train at 9.30 AM. They spent just two hours here. But it was fun. Their field trip is to Calcutta and Varanasi this time.
We watched a lot of cricket and some tennis. We were happy that Agassi as well as Leander/Martina won. I saw the excellent match between Roddick AyNoyi only from 6-all to 10-all in the final set as I had to go out. But Amritha saw the entire final set. It was a very good match, with the entire crowd present even though it was past midnight in Australia. India is gearing up for the World Cup. Fortunately, the loss of manhours would be less as all the matches are in the evenings. My prediction is that Australia, England and India from Pool-A and S.Africa, West Indies and Sri Lanka from Pool-B will enter the Super Six. What about the fsemi-finals, finals and winner. I shall make those predictions in the next Newsletter.
Bye,
anbudan,
2nd February 2003
MY DIARY FOR FEBRUARY 2003 (from 3rd Feb. to 6th Mar.)
World Cup kept us mostly confined to the house. More on World Cup later.
Kannan is recovering well. Jaya akka is also better now, though her urea count keeps going up. The specialist says there is no worry as long as she is active and sticks to saltless and less-sugar diet, restricts the intake of fluids to 1 litre a day and is active. We dropped her in T. Nagar on 26th Feb.
Coming back to World Cup, my predictions , as most predictions was only 50 % correct. But both WI and S.Africa were knocked out by rain while England lost out due to politics. Nirmal Sarkar has, in today's (6th March) Hindu written about his top ten of the first stage of the World Cup. Here is my top ten events/images of the World Cup upto 4th March.
1. Sachin's six off Shoaib Akhtar and Sehwag's six off Waqar Younis.
2. Jonty Rhodes' injury and retirement.
3. Brian Lara's century against S.Africa.
4. Fireworks of Davison (BCCI should persuade this player to migrate to India !).
5. Symonds' century against Pakistan, when Australia was in trouble.
6. Stephen Fleming's brilliance which overshadowed a wonderful century by Herschelle Gibbs.
7. Nehra's bowling against England ( I'd also eat crow, ungarnished at that, as I was one of the many who felt he should have been dropped).
8. Collins Obuya's five for 24 against Sri Lanka.
9. Andy Bichel and Michael Bevan against England.
10. Md. Kaif's running out Nick Knight, a la Jonty.
Among the others who were considered for inclusion were Shane Warne's retiring hurt: Shoaib's throw: Vaaas's hat-trick and Pollock's grief. I really felt sorry that WI and S. Africa missed out.
Bye,
anbudan,
2nd February 2003
MY DIARY FOR FEBRUARY 2003 (from 7th Mar. to 5th Apr.)
9 Super Six, 2 semi-final and the final matches kept us mostly confined to the house in March.
The news of the month was Hema's transfer on 27th. She has, however, only come three-fourth the way as her new posting is in Tambaram. She is staying in Kodambakkam. Kannan and Jaya Akka are both normal. Amritha attended her father's masyam on 6th March. On 7th March, Amritha and I saw the Tamil movie Julie Ganapathy in Baby Albert theatre. It was very good. Saritha and Jayaram have acted very well under Balu Mahendra's direction. Some parts of it remind us of Moodupani and Moondram Pirai . There was just one song sequence that was unnecessary. Overall the film was very well made with a beautiful photography. we also found time to see another movie, Mr. and Mrs. Iyer on 19th March at Studio-5, a nice cosy thetre in Satyam complex. This was directed by Aparna Sen and was good.
Formula- I racing for 2003 started in March, with Shoemacher not finishing in the top three in both Australia and Malaysia. 23rd March was of course the biggest day in India in 2003. Nobody here seemed to be bothered about anything else including the war. I have written about the match in a separate article. That morning, we went to a Tyagaraja Aradhana in a school nearby. Nila and Kunjumani, also known as Sikkil Sisters, who are famous flute players were the main artistes. It was good to see about 40 people ranging in age from 6 to 60 singing Tyagaraja's Pancharatna keerthanas in unison. We spent the morning there and came home in time for lunch and the finals.
Chandra came here via Dubai on 27th early morning and went to T.Nagar. Raghu came via Kuala Lampur on 28th night and also went to T.Nagar. On 28th, I was invited by KVIC to preside over the valedictory function of an exhibition in Royapettah. Amritha was also invited to distribute the prizes. We were told that Shankaracharya had inaugurated it 10 days earlier. It went off well (I spoke in Tamil).
We saw an exhibition of paintings and handicraft by the children of ICF employees on 29th. Some of the works were excellent. In fact the prize-winning painting in the group 12-20 years which was on thermocole was top class. Some of the embroidery were also very good.
On 30th, we went to Kodambakkam and T.Nagar. We saw Raghu , Chandra and others there. Raghu has bought more than 30 old Tamil (and some Hindi/English) film CDs. Since Jaya Akka had been saying for some time that it was ages since she went to the beach, we went there. Chandra and I played catch-me (the others were too self-conscious to run), where I easily caught Chandra. All of us also shot the balloon with air-pistol. It was good fun.
We had visitors in my brothers, sister and nieces' families as well as Santhanam & Kausalya and Rukku, Mr.Varadachari & Aditya. In other news
We bought a new Samsung 29" TV ( the day before India-New Zealand match)
Aditya is joining summer camp in Bangalore.
Divya and Dipti (my niece Usha's children) have gone to Jakarta in March.
Shoba visited Disneyland and Universal Studios.
Mukund and Rahul attended Rahman's concert
Raghu is now in Nasik
America and U.K. are at war, but all is well in India.
Bye,
anbudan,
5th April 2003
|
|
|
