Soon after I came here (and until I started my PhD, when my roommate got a PC, ruining everything !) I started corresponding with folks back in Chennai (I got letters from Manimma/Perippa/Appa/Amma, Rajiv, Srikanth, Sriram and also from Durga Akka, Amrith, Pushpa (a sample from Amrith/Pushpa
was posted here) Balachander Mama, Rajagopalan Mama (who shared his priceless tape collection with Perippa) and many others.
For a long time now, I have been thinking of putting up scans of some of the letters from Manimma. Manimma was the most regular person in writing letters, and asked me to keep writing even if I called up regularly (which i did not). I tried to write regularly until the stupid PC thing changed everything and made me lazy, so I'd just send folks back home email and ask Rajiv/Srikanth to either read it or print it out and hand it to them.
One could certainly expect a packet from Manimma (with poonal, darbhai, and sankalpam) for every
ஆவணி ஆவிட்டம் (
see my post here), and generally a letter before
varalakShmi vrata , nOmbu etc. After much delay, i took the initiative of scanning a few letters (I did this before i started posting so I don't lose steam and wait too long between posts), and have decided to start posting them at regular intervals, maybe one every month or so. Before i do so, here's a cover from a card that Manimma sent Rajiv (in Jan 1999)
and one from my parents the same time as the letter from Manimma I am going to post shortly (2 posts from this one).
My father's advice was to save these letters so I could enjoy reading them later (which i now see was good advice, that i thankfully followed :-) while my mother's was to keep doing my sandhyavandanam and veda/music practice (
தினம் 121 காயத்ரி ஜபம் பண்ணவும், வேதமும் பாட்டும் மறக்காமல் முடிந்த பொது சொல்லவும் ) which I unfortunately never did follow :-(
Ambi Anna tells me (I talked to him an hour ago) that Perippa is back to normal now, even though he is sure to miss Baby Athai and Raja Anna when they leave :-(. I hope he feels better soon. For all he has done for the family, he deserves all the happiness possible. I have very fond memories of the பாராயணம்/பூஜை that he did every day (complete with நைவேத்யம் and ஆர்த்தி), how he would take us to music class (first with Salem Shri Chellam Iyengar and later with Shri V.R. Krishnan), take us to the book fair every year (where he bought tons of books for us), the trips to Music Academy and other places, and how he has always taught through example.
