Odds and Ends

Have been a nervous wreck the last 2 weeks, because of our trip to Madras in a few minutes :-) Lots of poor planning, and so many unfinished things :-(...Wanted to (i) scan old photos that I found lying around in envelopes at home, (ii) convert Perippa's tape collection to mp3, (iii) help with Kalpagam Mami's notebook typing etc.  etc. All remain undone (well, partially done) !!  Also wanted to update the blog many many times, but never got to it. Most times i sat down to compose a long post on Manimma's samayal (after what Raja Anna, Pushpa, Meera, Aarthi Rajiv etc had said, and also after several days of excellent cooking by Vidya), but then after some initial typing, the project was discontinued. Will take up that topic when I get back from India, but wanted to post something before we left..Will also remind myself to get recipes from Chitti that both Chitti and Manimma shared, and post them here..

Our primary purpose for visiting this time is Chitappa's 81st birthday, which will be observed with a get-together of family/friends (Manimma so much loved this when it was done for her birthday)

Anyway, am looking forward to the day. Tried to prepare an invitation (shamelessly copied from the web), and is attached below..

Will work on Perippa's tape-to-mp3 conversion, Kalpagam Mami's notations etc from Madras. Was very happy that Rajiv helped with this process, and typed up one of my favourite kritis : gauri girirajakumari  (also see this) Some partial scans (very interesting !) that I have been working on are attached below

Jambu, Chinnanni, ManiPerippa and Appa - SBGroup, July1954

Seemantham

 

Outside WhiteHouse, Washington DC, 07Feb1961

Telco Mess Committee

Picnic - Rajgir, Nalanda, Gaya - Jan1979

Pithukuli Murugadas, K3-52, Jamshedpur

More to come later :-) We are off to LA in a few minutes, and will update the blog after Pongal.

More forgotten birthdays and more wedding bells

After forgetting Manimma's birthday (which fell on Vijayadashami), I just realized when I called up Besant Nagar to talk to Perippa on தீபாவளி that Wednesday 3rd was his birthday. Belated birthday wishes Perippa !

Today is also Harini and Amrith's wedding. Best wishes to the couple. Its nice to see the entire family (well, almost :-) in Bangalore, and we hope they have a great time. After the original wedding bells post, Ambi Anna sent us some lovely wedding photos of Manimma & Perippa, that are shown below. But before posting wedding photos of the grandparents of the groom, we start with one of the parents :-)

Ambi Ann's email to us said 

If you guys thought you were pioneers in trying to have a simple wedding, you are wrong.  See attached wedding invitation for Mannima / Perippa's wedding. Despite affordability, the invitation itself was very simple, the wedding was conducted at home, and it was a one-day only wedding.

 May Manimma and Perippa's blessings be upon Harini and Amrith and all of us and our families.

A forgotten birthday

This week, I received an email from Srikanth saying Siddharth's birthday celebrations went off well. I checked my calendar to see that today (the 24th in India) is Siddharth's birthday, and so I realized it must have been his star (நக்ஷத்திரம்) birthday. So Siddharth, here's wishing you many more happy returns of the days, and some photos from this day in 2008 (how time flies) !

It was when I checked the calendar that I realized that exactly a week ago (Oct 17th, also விஜயதசமி) was Manimma's birthday, and i am ashamed that I completely forgot it. In fact, after 9 days of doing some puja every evening for नवरात्रि, and usually doing a lot more on विजयदशमी,  this was the first year that I decided not to do anything, and it had to coincide with Manimma's birthday :-(

नवरात्रि must have been special for Manimma because of her family's association with the Meenakshi Amman Koil. She told me (or maybe Perippa told me this) of how she was offered श्रीविद्या दीक्षा (Ambi Anna might know the details), but was advised by some family members against it, given how arduous the discipline is. Shown below is a (श्रीविद्या) "dollar" coin that Manimma gave us the last time we were in Madras.

Even though I didn't remember Manimma's birthday, I feel happy that Kamakshi picked the book that (Manimma and) Perippa gifted to us when we were in Madras to place in front of सरस्वती (for சரஸ்வதி பூஜை). She also did part (most ?) of the puja this time :-)

Siddharth's birthday is the perfect occasion to remember how good Manimma was with children (thank you Ranjana for these lovely photos !).

 

 

If I'm not mistaken the incident described below happened on the day the last photo was taken. Kamakshi was playing with a glass tumbler and I was shouting at her angrily to hand it over to me, with no success..

மணிம்மா:ஏன்  டா குழந்தைய பார்த்து கத்தறே ?

Myself : கைல glass வேட்சுண்டிருக்கா மனிம்மா..

மணிம்மா: இப்போ ஒனக்கு அது வேணும், அவளவு தானே ? 

காமாக்ஷி, இங்க வா மா

Manimma then held out a stainless steel tumbler and said: நான் ஒனக்கு இது தரேன், நீ எனக்கு அது  தரியா ?

The exchange took 5 seconds, and I learnt a valuable lesson (or should have, but being a slow learner, am still working on it :-) 

Of உப்பு/வெல்ல சீடைs and other good memories

My last post was on memories of varalakShmi vratam, but was made on ஆவணி ஆவிட்டம். Now this happened to be another majorly important day in Besant Nagar, and I almost wanted to make a post of all my ஆவணி ஆவிட்டம் memories (there's a lot of them with Manimma, and this was most likely the first ஆவணி ஆவிட்டம் in the US that I hadn't received a   ஸங்கல்பம் from Manimma), but then decided against it given how close it was (in time) to the varalakShmi vratam one. Called Perippa up after காயத்ரீ ஜபம் to get his blessings.

With almost a week gone by, and also Ranjana sending me some lovely photos of Manimma last week, I was just thinking (earlier today) that it was time to update the blog, when I saw Ambi Anna's email reminder that today was ஸ்ரீ க்ருஷ்ண ஜந்மாஷ்டமீ and asking people to share their memories of the day. Rajiv was the first to respond, and as expected, it was about the lovely பக்ஷணம்s that Manimma and Chitti made on the day :-) Aarthi followed that up with the following comment:

  Although we are not celebrating this year, we did what Manimma would have been proud of and what we should have started doing 4 years ago: we made the uppu and vella cheedais! If she had tasted them, she would have smiled and said it was good.

This same time last year we were in Madras for ஜந்மாஷ்டமீ and I sadly remember that making பக்ஷணம்s at home is all but gone, even in Madras ! So to make வெல்ல சீடைs and உப்பு சீடைs by hand over here is such a nice thing to do for Manimma that she indeed must be very proud. So thank you Aarthi and Rajiv, this is for you, hoping you will make many பக்ஷணம்s and keep some coming this way :-)

Also, here are some memories from this day last year

Chitappa, Siddharth and Kamakshi

Siddharth and Kamakshi with the "don't mess with me" look

And even though we didn't see Manimma that day (I don't think we did), we did visit a very special Manimma-esqe person, Kalpagam (Swaminathan) Mami (whom Manimma held in great respect) that day.

Vidushi Kalpakam Swaminathan Mami, 2009 ஜந்மாஷ்டமீ

Mami taught Vidya cEtaH SrIbAlakRshNaM bhajarE, and also sang anantabAlakRshNa mAmava and kRshNAnanda mukunda murArE. Now what a treat that was !


On that musical note, and to be fair to Rajiv, who also mentioned Chitappa hanging up lights and playing Pithukuli Murugadas's LP records along with the பக்ஷணம் memories, we conclude this post with some nice musical memories that Rajiv mentioned from janmAShTamI-s past (I actually remember these from our Jamshedpur days in the 70s !):

அலை பாயுதே:

பால் வடியும் முகம்:

|| śrī kṛṣṇārpaṇamastu ||

॥ श्री कृष्णार्पणमस्तु ॥

Varalakshmi Vratam - 1

Got back from Ben and Pushpa's wedding last night, with a thousand plus unforgettable memories ! Met a good number of people, including the usual suspects Aarthi and Rajiv, Ranjana and Amrith, Kitcha Anna, and also Durga Akka, Raghu Anna, Neela Akka, Mauli Athimber, Aditi and Arjun, and of course Geetha Manni, Raja Anna, Meera, Pushpa and Ben. The wedding was also "skyped" in part to India, with Perippa, Ambi Anna, Malini Manni, Amma and Srikanth, among others, watching the proceedings live. Ben and Pushpa are such a wonderful couple together, and we all wish them the very best. Don't forget your promise to come visit us soon !

Landed in Baltimore on the day of Ben and Pushpa's nischyataartham, which also coincided with varalakShmi vrata. Vidya did the puja with Kamakshi back home in my absence.  varalakShmi vrata is traditionally observed on the Friday before paurNami in the month of shrAvaNa (श्रावण पौर्णमी पूर्वस्थ शुक्रवारे चारुमती प्रभृतिभिः पूजिताकारे). Almost everyone who spent some time with Manimma knew that this was her favorite பண்டிகை. She took keen interest in decorating vara(mahA)lakShmi and inviting friends and relatives on the day each year. Here are a few photos of the occasion from our trip to India last year (2009).

வரலக்ஷ்மி அம்பாள்  in Besant Nagar
(decorated with Paddu Athai's help)

Manimma and Perippa along with Lalitha Mami
(Vidya and Kamakshi's hand in the background)

So imagine my surprise when I received on that particular day from Neela Akka  (while we were all at Raja Anna and Geetha Manni's place before the nischyataartham) a photo of வரலக்ஷ்மி அம்பாள் decorated by Manimma, with glowing tributes to her, prepared and sent to us by Paddu Athai. Thank you so much Athai !!! When I met Rajiv and Aarthi in the hotel room, and also talked to Vidya that day, I told them how blessed we are to have received this not-so-subtle blessing from Manimma on this auspicious day.

varalakSmi vrata, Besant Nagar, circa ?
[(L to R) Aditi, Varalakshmi, Arjun and Anita :-]

Paddu Athai's tribute to Manimma, August 12, 2010.

என்றும் உங்கள் நினைவாகவே இருக்கும் குடும்பத்தினர்.

Wedding Bells for Pushpa

When we created a blog for Manimma, I resolved to contribute at least a few posts before Pushpa and Ben's wedding. I had grandiose plans of coming up with fitting tributes to Manimma along the lines of Subrahmanya Bharati's beautiful elegy to Subbarama Dikshitar, where he says

கன்னனோடு கோடை போயிற்று 

உயர்கம்பநாடனுடன் கவிதை  போயிற்று

....

அருட் சுப்பராமனேனும் இணையிலா விற்பன்னனோடு 

சுவைமிகுந்த பண்வளனும்   அகன்றதேனப் பகரலாமே !

Charity vanished with Karna

poetry with the lofty Kamban 

...

but with the passing away of unparalleled Subbaraman, 

mellifluous music departed.

With two weeks gone and me no closer to becoming a mahAkavi, and also with the கணபதி ஹோமம், சமாராதனை and விரதம்-s over this morning (Thu, Aug 19), I decided to scale down my plans and just post *something* before the wedding, and I thought what better thing to post during this occasion than memories of Manimma's long association with weddings (and other festivities) in our family. We start with some photos (and one video) of Manimma at some recent weddings:

Manimma at Aarthi Rajiv's wedding, Nov 23, 2006

Manimma at Srividya & Sridhar's wedding, June 21, 2004

Manimma at Kalyani & Sriram's wedding, June 11, 2000.

and a not-so-recent one :-) Both Raja Anna and Mythili Akka are in this photo, along with a a very happy Perippa.

Manimma at Amma & Appa's wedding, Nov 11, 1958

Here are a few more scans from Sriram's and my उपनयनम् (upanayanam, பூணூல்)

and the 80th birthday celebrations of Manimma (one of the most beautiful gifts to Manimma !)

Manimma's 80th Birthday celebration,  Oct 17, 2008

We conclude this post with the following observations of the bride-to-be "Manimma helped Amma figure out and organize many of the details for my wedding, I think...I know she'll be with us in spirit". 

Amen.

In Memoriam

Smt. Saradambal Srinivasan (17 October 1928 - 31 July 2010)

We ceased: a gentler feeling crept
   Upon us: surely rest is meet:
   "They rest," we said, "their sleep is sweet,"
And silence follow'd, and we wept.

-  In Memoriam A.H.H, by Alfred Tennyson