Gathering for Shanthi

Amma's favourite niece was in town and she wanted to visit us so Param organised a meet up at OKR. Now a meet up won't be right without food. And if amma was around it would have surely been a spread. Well I'm not amma but I made sure there was a meal. Since it was a Thursday we had to compromise and have vegetarian as well as non-veg. Don't know what she would have thought about that. Anyway it was idiappam, sothi, idili, prawn curry and cutlets for the kids. Suganthi brought a lovely mango cheese cake, I think. Its been a long time since we had little children around so it was a bit noisy but I'm used to it at school so it did not bother me. 

Now let me see if I can remember their names. Shanthi's children are Amara 10 and Nikhil 8. Suganthi's kids are ........ .  I missed the little girl, she is so cute and adorable. I will come back to it later when I remember. I thought Nikhil looked exactly like Shanthi and Amara had her lovely curls. Rasu looked like she had lost some weight. As Jeyanthi said she walks twice a day in the morning and evening so that would be the reason. It was difficult having Chinamah and Rasu around because they remind me so much of amma. It was a shame that Indra was not around then it would have been complete. Opportunities like this are hard to come by so must make an effort. Realisation comes late in life I suppose. 

Anyway it was good to do a bit of cousin bonding. Even Raul and Rania were getting to know their 2nd. cousins. Davinia looked lost when she was introduced to Shanthi. I think its the first time she is seeing her. I was worried that the little fellow might fall in the pond or hurt himself with all the running around that he was doing. I'm sure they had a good night's sleep. 

Amma would have been happy that all her children and her sole grandchild were in attendance. 

SD and NTV no brownie points for you.  

Pallagaram

Chinamah and Chinayah came over today to teach me and the maid how to make my favourite 'pehrangayam pallaharam' in short ribbon muruku. It was amma who taught them long time ago and then they improvised the recipe. They wrote out the recipe and brought it along. What a waste that I never learnt how to do it when amma was around. But it is quite a tedious and tiring  job especially the frying part. The recipe alone was quite easy but it was the tail end that I did not like. Why can't Indian recipes end with pop it into the oven and let it bake. Anyway it turned it quite nice but it still lacked amma's touch just like everything else. I can easily finish one whole container of it in a day. Its been a week and its still there. 

Maybe all of us have to learn one or two things so that we can have one person specialising in something. Shobah said she tried to make some pallaharam and it turned out quite well. Maybe we have to depend on her for our pallaharam from next year. 

Thank you Chinamah and Chinayah. Much appreciated:) Acca will be very pleased.

FIRST YEAR ANNIVERSARY COFFEE TABLE BOOK

Please start the ball rolling, 'Our Family Publishing Team.' Are we going to make the coffee table book as Vik suggested? It is a huge task and needs to be started pretty soon. We managed to compile and publish the book for amma's first month anniversary at record speed. This project is much bigger so we had better plan the contents of the new book and how its to be organised.
If I remember vaguely, Vik did suggest a section for all the members of the family. What are we going to include? Is it going to be a picture book or filled with anecdotes from people amma knew?
Its October now and that would mean we have a little short of 6 months.

One of the rare family pictures with everyone except Apan's family.

DEEPAVALI

We never really celebrated Deepavali on a grand scale but you were always there to organise the palagaram, not just for us but the whole family. This year we won't be celebrating Deepavali but what about next year? Who is going to do the making, ordering and the distributing? 

My job was to organise cookies, which I easily did thanks to Belvir from school, who I have been ordering from all these years. Well, one thing is for sure, Mrs. Navaratnam's sister is going to feel the loss of her loyal and extravagant customer. So is the lady in Taman Yarl, who was another of your local palagaram contacts. We did try ordering from her and Jeeva kept referring to you, Mrs. Bala.

The other day Shobah commented that she did not get any chippy. She said that you used to keep some for her whenever you ordered some. She was obviously missing you when she thought of the chippy you saved for her. Now how am I supposed to know that. You should have left me a list of who likes what. 

Even when Rupert was down he said that he used to ask you to order the chippy for him to take back to UK. 

My favourite ribbon was something I looked forward to that you would make. I can easily finish the whole container full. Well, no more amma's ribbon for me. Chinamah and Chinayah did make some for me recently and it was really sweet of them. There is still some of your fruit cake in the fridge. It was the last batch that you made. I am pretty sure it is spoilt by now but I don't have the heart to throw it away. I will be forced to do so soon when it gets bad and mouldy. In fact your brown rice was lying in the freezer until recently when I had to force myself to throw it away. Well Jeyanthi did take over the making of the fruit cake so we will still get our supply of fruit cake and more at Christmas, when Jo makes her batch.

I just had another thought, what will you be doing on your first Deepavali without us? 

Well, one thing for sure, it will never be the same again for all of us.

 

Amma

Missing You.....

The Buddhist priest told us that we had to let you go and not mourn your loss because your spirit will not be at peace. How difficult it is not to cry when I think of you. I can't help how I feel and some days it is more difficult. All of us miss you terribly. We are trying our best to move on but the pain and the tears will never go away.
We have all been going through different stages coming to terms with not having you around. It is such a difficult journey with no end in sight. I have been unable to write on your blog because it was becoming too painful. I will try to be more consistent from now on. Almost 7 months.......

What has your family been up to?

Param has started a trust fund for your beloved grandchildren with your last drawn pension which mysteriously came in the post last week. I think you were happy that Param finally had his hair cut and you were rewarding him. The Hibiscus Thava Fund (HTF) Your grandchildren will still continue to receive money from you even though you no longer are here.

Jeyanthi is busy with her new house, which you would have enjoyed if you were around. She bought the little alter that you always wanted. She had us all over for vegetarian food. Hope you enjoyed it as well. She has taken over your place telling us when to be vegetarian and what festival was around the corner. Dava says she is worst then you. She even managed to get Param go to temple. 

She found something among her things while tidying up. We never knew about its existence.

Never knew that appa had a book specially made for his 31st day. I wonder who wrote this first page? The rest of it was in tamil. Jeyanthi was supposed to ask Chinamah about it.