Appa’s been mentioning Luray Caverns for a while now, so we decided to head there this weekend. He did pretty well despite his knees giving him a tough time. ‘Oh so worth it. Simbly beautiful’ - his words! While at it, we got our annual national parks pass and decided to do the scenic drive in Shenandoah. S had a terrific time hopping on top of the car and addressing the wilderness at almost every pull-over area. ...
As I walked up from the basement this early morning, I got to capture this beautiful picture of the light from the laundry room ’lighting’ up the lamp from the Kolam. We performed Appa’s Satabhishekam today. His sisters could attend the ceremony in person and a good bunch of family zoomed in. Until yesterday, we weren’t even sure we’d make it in time for the event. Phew! He’s turning 86 this year! Several circumstances pushed this celebration until now and we’re so glad we could make it happen today. Highlight of the event was undoubtedly the veda recital at the end of the ceremony. Wish we recorded it! ...
Epic moment of the day - Appa was finding it difficult to copy part of a text message on his phone. So I helped him select the content, copied the text and handed over the phone back to him asking him to paste it wherever he wanted to paste it. He looked at me extremely confused and said how could he if the text was on my finger! Took me a good moment to realize what was going on in his mind and ultimately I did have to dispel his myth - text does not hop onto and off fingers when you copy paste. If only it did! ...
Meena video interviewed my dad this weekend. The intent was to document his thoughts and perspectives of the years gone by and to get glimpses of his generation. We learnt so many interesting things about our family that we wouldn’t have known if we hadn’t done this. An oral history of sorts! This has been on the back burner for a while now and I’m so glad we got this rolling! This along with the family tree project has sent me down the rabbit hole of documenting our ancestral history. ...
Just published Appa’s first book - ‘Smell of the Soil’ in print format. This has been on his (and my) ’to-do’ list for a while now. We did publish the digital version in December 2017 and looking back makes me wonder why we didn’t publish the print version earlier! It’s been a few years that he’s been wanting to do this and we’ve had quite some discussion on what’s the best way to publish/market and never quite came to a consensus. Today, on an impulse, I hit the publish button with a small publishing firm in India and ordered the first copy for myself. Can’t wait to get my hands on it and send him a copy! ...
@ Kanyakumari, India A glimpse of sunrise at the tip of the Indian subcontinent, where the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal meet the Indian Ocean. Tourists throng to this overlook, right behind the Bagvathi Amman temple at the break of dawn (and the onset of dusk). The Vivekananda memorial continues to be one of those few locations to be maintained sparking clean. Nothing much seems to have changed since my last visit to this place seven years ago. The shrouded Thiruvalluvar statue that’s to the far right talks volumes of the current political situation in the state. The ferry no longer stops at the statue. ...
Came across a really interesting open source book publishing platform - Pressbooks. Appa’s book dream is so much more closer! Adding that to my list of personal projects.